Why is SC proposing more standardized tests?

A recent Gallup poll strongly indicated that parents across demographic groups believe that standardized testing is overemphasized and an inaccurate indicator of educational quality. Parents and teachers in our state and across the nation have reached their saturation point with standardized testing.

Therefore, it is disturbing that the S.C. Education Oversight Committee is about to adopt an accountability system that bases 90 percent of its scores for elementary and middle schools on standardized testing.

This system would also require more standardized testing than is mandated by the federal government. And 20 percent of schools will always be identified as “failing” no matter how much improvement occurs.

The EOC has botched an opportunity with a tone-deaf proposal that resorts to the same old warmed-over bubble tests. The EOC needs to come up with something that actually benefits students rather than further enriching the bubble-test industry.