The War On Tests

SAN DIEGO -- Do you remember when teachers liked tests? Do you recall a time when they didn't seem to care that students might stress over a final exam in history, or didn't worry that a pop quiz in spelling was only a "snapshot" of what a student knew, or didn't criticize standardized tests because students don't all learn the same way?

Sure you do. It wasn't that long ago. I started elementary school in the 1970s, and I was given hundreds of tests over the next 12 years.

In eighth grade, my American history teacher told the class that -- in accordance with California state law -- we'd be given a test on the U.S. Constitution. Then came the threat. If we didn't pass, he said, we couldn't graduate and go on to high school.

How was I supposed to explain this to my parents? They had already planned a party. Talk about stressful. But no one cared -- least of all my teacher. His response would have been: If you don't want to freak out over not knowing the answers, go study some more.

Today, teachers are more touchy-feely, and they actually worry that students could be under a lot of pressure to test well. So teachers criticize tests as harmful to kids.

Time to clarify terms. Teachers still use traditional tests all the time -- in their own classrooms. What teachers object to, and have been fighting against, is so-called high-stakes testing mandated by government.

It's the kind of thing that the Department of Education has required for more than a decade under both the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind" law and the Obama administration's "Race to the Top" initiative.

Under President Bush, schools where students did poorly on tests faced the threat of being shut down. Under President Obama, schools where students did well could earn additional funding.

Teachers hated both approaches because, with either the stick or the carrot, they would finally be accountable for the product they turned out. And, in what should have been our first hint that something was amiss, they had no confidence that they would emerge from the process covered in glory.

And so teachers, and the unions that do their dirty work by trudging through the muck of politics, went to war against high-stakes tests because they understood that the tests were dangerous -- to teachers.

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