From Nashville School Board Member Amy Frogge on her Facebook page — comments regarding Tennessee’s commitment to testing:
Here’s how much our state is paying for all of the assessments it’s conducting on our students:
$4,060,157.37 to Measurement, Inc. over five years (English language learner test).
$95,820,439.54 to Pearson over eight years (TCAP).
$25,740,312.75 to Measurement, Inc. over five years (TCAP).
…
$57,726,914.20 over five years to NCS Pearson, Inc. (end of course assessments)
And this is just scratching the surface. How about costs for training, prep materials, local district test costs, teacher time to conduct the tests, etc.?
Is your head spinning yet? Just think what we could do if we could use this money for our schools instead of paying for tests used to “evaluate” teachers.
Frogge is lamenting the use of $183 million plus associated costs just for testing. She poses the very good question of what else might we do with these funds? What if we could cut testing costs in half, even? And have $100 million over 5 years to use on something besides testing? What’s the highest and best use of $20 million a year in education dollars? Are taxpayers even aware of how much of their money is spent on testing kids?
These are all good questions, and as the issue gets discussed more and more, they may be asked during the 2014 legislative session – the one just before most legislators face re-election.
All of that money could be used for real intervention. Educators are some of the most educated professionals in the country. I’m pretty sure they know how to assess their students better than a company in Texas. The trauma caused by poverty cannot be fixed with a test. Social workers, counselors, or psychologists would be a million times better of an investment for a child. But let’s face the truth. This is not about our kids anymore. The Tennessee legislators are influenced by the ALEC. Mnps charter superintendent, Chris Barbic is an Eli Broad crony. Now he is being mentioned as Register’s replacement. Broad cronies are screwing up districts all over the country in the name of profit. And that brings me back to my point. A social worker walks into the school to help a child, not to profit. It’s if none of us ever watched Good Will Hunting. Get the child healthy in the mind first, then the motivation to learn will follow. Testing is screwing up our education systems and I will opt my child out. Quit blaming the caring teachers for poor academics and start pointing fingers at crony capitalism.
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