That’s how teachers view standardized testing in Tennessee, according to a statewide survey.

The Cookeville Herald-Citizen reports on attitudes toward standardized testing (TNReady) among teachers in Putnam County and notes the results are similar statewide:

Most teachers in Putnam County say information received from statewide standardized exams is not worth the investment of time and effort.
The results come from the state’s 2019 Tennessee Educator Survey released Thursday.
The state Department of Education said more than 45,000 Tennessee educators completed this year’s survey, representing 62 percent of the state’s teachers — an all-time high response rate. In Putnam County, 80 percent of the teachers took the survey, as did 88 percent of administrators.
According to the results, 62 percent of Putnam teachers either disagreed or strongly disagreed that standardized testing was worth the effort. Statewide, that percentage was 63 percent.

It’s no surprise that educators find little value in TNReady given the challenges with test delivery over the past five years:

We moved from a different type of test to an online test that failed to a paper test, to another online failure, and back to a paper test. Can we really measure any actual growth based on those circumstances?

It will be interesting to see how lawmakers and Governor Lee respond to this crisis of confidence in state testing. I suspect many promises will be made and, ultimately, nothing will change.

For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport

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