Better option: Tests designed by teachers

Published 9:55 am Friday, May 8, 2015

In his letter May 1 (“Common Core won’t improve education,” page A4), James Behrend nailed it when he identified a root cause of the failure of Common Core as “politicians in Washington, D.C. who are frustrated with the problems in education they do not understand.”

Because reformers only solve the problems they define, incorrect definitions are doomed to produce failing and often unnecessarily expensive reforms. As a retired career high school teacher, I speak with more experience than helicopter parents and pandering politicians in both Washingtons.

Standardized tests are not the solution to improvement of student learning. Tests designed and administered by professionally trained classroom teachers are a far superior option. They, not standardized tests, are the only tests that are “used primarily to measure student performance and direct the education of each child.”  This is the real reason that both the NEA and WEA oppose the standardized testing regimen.

I trust the judgment of professionally educated classroom teachers to teach and evaluate individual student performance because classroom teachers are the real experts who understand from daily experience the real problems in mandatory formal education.

The chief value of standardized testing is to identify where and how to sequence curriculum content and concepts taught.  Standardized tests evaluate the delivery system, not how well individual teachers teach or individual students learn.

The bipartisan compromise reform by politicians Patty Murray and LaMar Alexander is not a real solution to a real problem because this proposed compromise reform remains rotten at its core.

Tom Driscoll
Poulsbo