Education Commissioner Susan Gendron is recommending the Legislature permanently scrap a requirement that local school systems develop their own assessments to measure whether students are mastering all the subjects they need to graduate, so teachers can spend their time teaching not testing.
“There was a feeling by many educators throughout the state that there was an overemphasis on assessment,” said Genrdon Tuesday, and not enough focus on teaching and learning in the classroom.
Teachers and administrators are mostly welcoming the news this week.
Rick Simonds, who teaches English and creative writing at Bonny Eagle High School, agrees with Gendron. He said he thought local assessments cut into teaching, as a good portion of a teacher’s time was spent testing over a semester.
“We spend to much time testing to the detriment of instructional time,” Simonds said Wednesday.
Simonds said students would feel relieved, too. “The students aren’t enamored with all the tests,” he said.
According to Leland Arris, Westbrook High School teacher and Westbrook Education Association president, “The local assessment system was inefficient, expensive, extremely time-consuming and ineffective. It has taken countless teacher hours away from instruction in the classrooms in Westbrook schools.”
The Legislature last session put a moratorium on the local assessment system requirement, and now Gendron would like to see it repealed all together.
However, that wouldn’t necessarily mean teachers wouldn’t continue to use some assessment tools, said Susan Card, co-director of the Maine Assessment Cooperative, an assocation of educators from across the state working to develop local assessments.
“The repeal of the formal local assessment system won’t result in people abandoning what assessment parts they think is successful,” said Card.
Karen Rumery, curriculum coordinator for Gorham schools, said the moratorium has allowed more emphasis on learning rather than testing.
Rumery said eliminating the local assessments puts more energy into instruction. “It did give teachers a little more breathing room,” Rumery said about the moratorium.
Gendron said that instead of local assessments, schools can use tests already being given statewide under the federal No Child Left Behind Act to see if kids are making annual progress.
“There still will be quick little quizzes,” Gendron said, and other tests to see if students are keeping up with their work, but she wants to get rid of the laborious requirement that every local school system has to create its own comprehensive testing system.
That testing system was a companion to the state’s adoption of the so-called Learning Results, which outline what students are supposed to know at various grade levels in content areas like math, science, reading, writing and social studies.
While the local assessments were supposed to give local school districts more autonomy, creating and administering the tests overwhelmed educators, Gendron said.
“We tried to design a system that was unrealistic,” Gendron said. “Assessments were layered on top of what teachers were doing in the classroom.”
Westbrook High School Principal Marc Gousse said he thought teachers would now be able to get back to what they are supposed to be doing – teaching.
“One hundred and fifty years ago, what was important was reading, writing and arithmatic,” said Gousse. “One hundred and fifty years later, they’re still the conerstones.”
Westbrook Superintendent Stan Sawyer said developing local assessments has cost Westbrook thousands of hours for teachers and administrators, as well as tens of thousands of dollars.
“For some time now, there are a number of us who feel we have been spending too much time on assessments and not on teaching,” said Sawyer.
Gendron bolstered her case for ending the local assessment system with an $80,000 outside study that recommended Maine reduce its focus on testing and instead better train teachers.
If the Legislature agrees to scrap the local testing requirement, Gendron said the state will work with local school systems to establish achievement targets for each school based on the results of statewide tests already given in grades three through eight and grade 11 to comply with No Child Left Behind.
If the school doesn’t meet that achievement target, the department will provide technical assistance to help improve the school, Gendron said.
There also will be more focus on teacher training through what Gendron called “learning communities” or regional collaboratives that she said should be established regardless of what happens to Gov. John Baldacci’s plan to consolidate the existing 290 school districts into 26.
Gendron also is proposing that graduation requirements be more closely tied to the state’s Learning Results, and that all students graduate prepared to meet the admission requirements at Maine’s community colleges or state universities.
“Every student and parent – and every college and university admission officer – must be confident that a Maine high school diploma means the same thing,” Gendron said. “It’s not fair for our students to graduate high school, and then find out they can’t get into college, or can’t succeed in college, because they have not had the right preparation.”
Reporters Charlie Smith and Robert Lowell contributed to this story.
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