[Susan notes: Overwhelmed with all the outrage, I can't think of any comment except "Thank you, Stephen." Stephen Krashen points to the fallacy of increased testing, online testing, and making Mickey Mouse president. Oh wait, I made part of that up. But ask yourself, given a choice, which would you choose?]

Submitted to Baltimore Sun but not published
02/09/2012

To the editor

We should all worry about overwhelming students, schools with tests (2/7/12).



As the Sun points out, the new testing will be extremely time-consuming. There is no scientific evidence, however, that increasing the amount of testing done will increase student achievement.



As the Sun points out, the new tests need to be given online, and schools don't have the technology needed to administer the tests. Not to worry, the test publishers and computer companies will be happy to sell it to them, as well as sell them costly new equipment as the old equipment rapidly becomes obsolete.



As the Sun points out, the tests will be used to evaluate teachers. Study after study, however, has shown that this kind of evaluation does not produce reliable results. It also encourages pumping up test scores without real learning.



We all understand the need to assess students and evaluate teachers, but the brave new online tests are not the way to do it.

— Stephen Krashen