Stop High Stakes Testing

California Petition
Calling for an Immediate Moratorium%u2026
on using Standardized Test Scores as the basis for Rewarding and Punishing Students, Teachers, Schools and Administrators
 
These high stakes consequences are punitive, developmentally inappropriate, emotionally harmful and destructive of authentic learning and teaching;   
Therefore, as a first step:

1)    We support California SB 800 (introduced by Senator Loni Hancock of Berkeley) and AB 476 (introduced by Assembly member Tom Torlakson of Martinez) which will end STAR testing of 2nd graders. Research shows that statewide standardized testing for children under nine years of age is not developmentally appropriate and does not provide meaningful, valid, and reliable data.  Star testing of 2nd Graders costs approximately $4.5 million, and does not benefit the schools, pupils, parents, guardians, or teachers, and actually interferes with authentic, responsive, and meaningful learning and teaching.

2)    We support an independent evaluation of California%u2019s STAR Testing Program and its impact on public education as called for in Tom Torlakson%u2019s Assembly Bill 476. We support Torlakson%u2019s promoting multiple forms of student assessment that include students demonstrating their skills and understanding through projects and writing.

 And, as a second step:

3)    We urge our representatives to eliminate the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE):
Depriving students of their high school diplomas because of one test score on a multiple choice Standardized Test is immoral and irresponsible.   One score on the exit exam in effect ignores four years of schooling.
 
School districts spend millions on test-prep curriculum and standardized tests %u2013produced by testing corporations-- to raise students%u2019 scores on these multiple choice tests. But improving test scores will not improve the quality of education in our public schools. Quality teaching programs such as Reading Recovery are cut for lack of funds, just as the arts, history, social studies and physical education are cut in order to focus on raising standardized test scores.

from National Educational Scholars and Professionals:

%u201CI think education is far too complex to be reduced to a single score.%u201D Douglas Christensen, Commissioner of Education of Nebraska to the Chicago Tribune April 5, 2004.

%u201CIncreasingly people who have never even set foot in our classrooms and do not know our students are telling us how to teach them.%u201D Elaine M. Garan, Resisting Reading Mandates 2002.

"Bureaucratic solutions to problems of practice will always fail because effective teaching is not routine, students are not passive, and questions of practice are not simple, predictable, or standardized. Consequently, instructional decisions cannot be formulated on high then packaged and handed down to teachers."  Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University School of Education, Calif.

%u201CStandardized Testing is an example of INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM & CLASSISM.%u201D Phyllis T. Greenleaf, Child Development expert and author of I%u2019d Rather Be Learning; How Standardized Testing Leaves Learning Behind and What We Can Do.%u201D

%u2026%u201Dan accountability system based on standardized testing reduces educational quality, produces unnecessary failures, and fakes its claims to more equitable schooling.%u201D From: Leaving Children Behind: How %u201CTexas style%u201D Accountability Fails Latino Youth, Professors Linda McNeil and Angela Valenzuela, Rice University.

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