Murfreesboro State Senator Bill Ketron is proposing legislation that would place a two year moratorium on TNReady testing, he told the Daily News Journal.
Ketron said he will sponsor legislation for a two-year moratorium on the standardized testing mandate from the Tennessee Department of Education until all data is accurate and can be released to school districts in a timely way instead of being too late to be of use in evaluating performance.
Ketron’s legislation goes further than proposals made by legislators earlier this year that would continue the testing, but not use the results for student scores or teacher evaluation.
The move comes as Tennessee has experienced yet another round of testing trouble.
Tomorrow is December 1st and students and parents still do not have results from a test administered in April.
Members of Murfreesboro’s School Board expressed frustration:
“I do believe we are overtesting,” Terry said.
The lawmakers listened to school officials complain about the standardized testing.
“The system has not worked like it’s supposed to,” County Board of Education Chairman Jeff Jordan said.
The money spent on TNReady testing is “in large part being wasted,” Jordan said.
“It’s just thrown away,” Jordan said.
Murfreesboro City School Board member Nancy Rainier said the “testing debacle” has been hard on children.
“They are the ones being tested to death,” Rainier said.
Fellow county school board member Lisa Moore agreed.
“It’s a never-ending source of frustration,” Moore said.
Tennessee taxpayers spend millions of dollars on testing that so far, hasn’t proven very useful.
Ketron’s legislation will need to gain sufficient support to receive positive votes in House and Senate Education committees before getting a floor vote.
It seems certain Commissioner McQueen and Governor Haslam will oppose the measure, as both have expressed (misplaced) confidence in the current system.
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