Master teachers are frustrated and angered by the invalid uses of standardized test scores and with the public's acceptance of those who do not teach prescribing for those who do.
That aggressive use of economic stimulus money by Education Secretary Arne Duncan is provoking heated debates over the uses of standardized testing and the proper federal role in education, issues that flared frequently during President George W. Bush's enforcement of his signature education law, called No Child Left Behind.
Teachers unions argue that the swift adoption of new academic standards, the use of standardized tests to evaluate teachers' job performance and efforts to overhaul tenure all make teaching a less attractive career for anyone.
PAGE A13 THE LIMITS OF STANDARDIZED TESTS The main event for the more than 5,000 participants at the annual conference of the National Association of College Admission Counseling was William R. Fitzsimmons's first public presentation of a study on the use of standardized tests.
The law, the No Child Left Behind Act, calls for greater use of standardized tests and remedial action to raise student achievement and improve school performance.
In the early grades, I admired places that made thoughtful, diagnostic use of standardized tests to ensure young kids develop core learning skills.
Indeed, the main use of standardized tests many years ago, when I was in school, was to improve instruction, not to hold teachers accountable.
Mr. Massey once led a protest against the Education Department's use of standardized tests to determine promotion into fourth grade, but Ms. McKenzie has increased the amount of test preparation in the curriculum, teachers and parents say.
Though the use of standardized tests to hold schools accountable had widespread support, officials worried that the legislation tried to replace a smorgasboard of approaches with a one-size-fits-all menu from Mr. Bush's state of Texas.
He said that change alone, which would put the mayor more directly in control of the system, would be more effective than raising teachers' salaries, introducing vouchers, or expanding the use of standardized tests to measure the performance of students.
