Senators grapple with how much students should be tested

Associated Press ^ | Jan 21, 2015 2:30 PM EST | Kimberly Hefling

[Olog-hai]

The federal mandate to test U.S. school kids annually was at the center of a Senate panel’s work on Wednesday to fix the long outdated No Child Left Behind education law. […]

Many educators and parents have complained that the law led to teaching to the test and too much test preparation, but supporters of the mandate such as civil rights and business groups said it’s a critical way to ensure that historically underserved groups of students are learning before it’s too late to help them. […]

Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, maintains he’s open to discussion on the issue as he seeks to get a bill to the Senate floor by late February. …

[MrB]

“Too much” testing points out the failures of the public school system.

[buckalfa]

Why would anyone in the Congress grapple with student testing? That should be the reserve of parents and the local school board. Oh --- wait -- I forgot: "it takes a village to raise a child".

[Tax-chick]

I’m sure the Senators will make the best possible decision. After all, they’re so much smarter, better informed, and virtuous than the rest of us.

[KC_Lion]

Why is this the Senates Business in the first place?

(Answer: Early 20th Century Progressives sticking their finger in every pie, or layman's answers: Federal School Lunch Program Money. It all comes back to the Lunch Money, whether its a Bully or Uncle Sam)

[ConservativeInPA]

Sen. Lamar Alexander needs to read the US Constitution and find where the congress gets its power to do anything with education.

[grania]

Why grapple? The US Senate should recognize that there shouldn’t be any federal interference in public education. Let the states in coordination with local governments make decisions.

[Parmy]

They have to be taught something before they can be tested on anything.

[PGR88]

this is NOT something the US Senate should have anything to do with.

[WayneS]

This is a stupid thing for U.S. senators to be grappling with, since they have actually not been empowered by the Constitution to have any purview whatsoever over it.

[SharpRightTurn]

$18 trillion in debt and these louses want to run schools.

No doubt at some point they’ll mandate how heavy backpacks can be and outlaw sharpened pencils as too dangerous.

[Amendment10]

The states have never granted the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for intrastate public schools. This is another example of problems with the ill-conceived 17th Amendment where corrupt, Constitution-ignoring federal senators elected by misguided voters aren’t letting state lawmakers do their jobs to regulate intrastate schools.

Note that most state legislatures probably comply with constitutionally indefensible, federal policies (vote-winning student indoctrination) concerning intrastate schools in order receive constitutionally indefensible federal funding for their schools, state lawmakers clueless that the Supreme Court has clarified that the feds are prohibited from laying taxes in the name of state power issues.

“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

[GeronL]

How about it is none of their dang business?

[SoConPubbie]

You see, they want to stop the testing now, because it will show just how dismally CommieCore has failed.

You watch, the GOP-E will do nothing to stop CommieCore, however.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Isn’t that a decision best left to....oh, I dunno....teachers and local school boards, rather than Senators sitting in Washington, D.C.?

[Uncle Miltie]

There is little time for teaching anymore. It’s test test test test test. .....

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

...teaching to the test...

The test should be general knowledge that you would be expected to know after taking the course.

So just what is wrong with "teaching to the test"? It should produce the same results as teaching unless what they are saying is that the students learning what the course was suppose to teach is a bad thing.

[Adder]

Why not “grapple” with a time line to get the feds out of education?
All the crap you got to work on and you want to waste time playing like you are the SAT board?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

This is all part of Common Core, and Common Core fails the validation test.

Common Core English and Math Standards Not Properly Validated

[goodwithagun]

As a teacher I have no problem with accountability. The issue is that all of the mandated testing and new teacher evaluation systems fix nothing. Do you know what has resulted from all of this? More layers of state and federal bureaucracy, and more tax payer $$$ to pay for it.