State’s Top Educator Would Like to See Change in High-Stakes Testing
Georgia Department of Education
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Students in some Georgia public school districts are taking state-issued tests this week. Recent indictments of former educators in Atlanta and DeKalb County over alleged cheating to raise test scores have re-ignited a debate over the effects of so-called high-stakes testing.
Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, schools are evaluated solely on test scores. However, Georgia received a waiver from that part of the law. State Schools Superintendent John Barge says now test scores are one of several criteria on which schools will be evaluated.
“Assessment is still important; we need to know where our children are,” Barge says, “We need to know what they’ve learned, what they haven’t learned so we can use that to drive our instruction.”
But, he says, he hopes the change will ease the frenzy that can accompany test time.
“There is far more that we need to be concentrating on, and if we do that I think the test will take care of itself,” he says, “When you hinge everything on the test, you don’t give teachers the freedom and the room to do the things they know they need to do because they’re so worried about the test.”
Under the new process, schools will also be accountable for metrics like attendance and graduation rates.
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