A bill to limit state testing of students in Ohio to four hours a year will be up for vote from the House Education Committee Monday, after parents and educators testified this week that standardized testing is becoming a burden on students.
Testimony on Monday and Thursday was not extensive as the cap on testing moves at a rapid pace in this lame duck session of the legislature.
But the Education Committee heard support for House Bill 228 from officials of the Gahanna-Jefferson and Westerville school districts, the Ohio Education Association, a few parents and from three major education associations in the state – the Buckeye Association of School Administrators (BASA), the Ohio School Boards Association (OSBA) and the Ohio Association of School Business Officials (OASBO).
“Just recently, I shared our testing calendar with parents at a PTO meeting,” Roben Frentzel, principal at Jefferson Elementary School in the Gahanna-Jefferson district told the committee. ” As some parents cried and tried to process the information, I was faced with a lot of questions. I answered them with my best politically correct responses all the while, my heart was breaking.”
Why? Because third graders at her school will be taking about 23 hours of state-required tests this year. A big piece will be the new Common Core tests coming this spring from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), the multi-state testing partnership Ohio belongs to. But others are diagnostic tests required by the state.
“When you were 8 did testing loom daily in your brain?” Frentzel asked. “What are we doing to our kids?”
Jill Schuler, school board president from that district, was also bothered by a lag of several months before teachers can see data from state tests. Since it can’t be used to help students, Schuler said, teachers can’t really support it.
She praised HB 228 for making the state “budget” testing time and for taking away the “blank check” it now has for testing.
Scott DiMauro, vice president of the Ohio Education Association, one of two large teachers unions in the state, also supported the testing limit.
“I’m sure that many of your constituents have told you what our members throughout the state have told me—they are increasingly frustrated with the sheer volume of testing and testing preparation,” DiMauro said. “The time associated
with testing is crowding out time to teach and engage students in dynamic ways. Additionally, the emphasis placed on testing is causing a great deal of anxiety for students and their parents.”
Opposing the testing limit was Chad Aldis, vice president for Ohio policy and advocacy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Aldis told the committee that tests are needed to give a broader look at where students stand in their learning than a classroom teacher can see. Test results, he said, help guide parents in making school choices.
He said the bill is a “quick fix” that would limit the state’s ability to test students’ analytical and problem-solving skills and force it to rely on simpler ones.
“Ohio needs a test that allows kids to show what they truly know—not just
what bubble they can fill in,” Aldis said.
And he urged the House to wait until Jan. 15, when state Superintendent Richard Ross will have a report – as the legislature ordered this summer – on how testing can be reduced.
Ross said in a presentation this week to school officials from across the state that he is still researching the use of tests for his report and is surveying school districts now.
“What we’re finding is a huge amount of local assessments in addition to the assessments at a state level,” Ross said.
He said many of the ones that districts assign can be consolidated with others or eliminated. He said he expects to have real recommendations to reduce testing, but said he won’t be stop them altogether.
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