Heidi Alexander: “over the weekend President Obama announced that all 100,000 public schools across the Nation should limit testing to 2…”

“over the weekend President Obama announced that all 100,000 public schools across the Nation should limit testing to 2 percent of a student's time in the classroom. It is a recommendation, not a requirement, and it comes in response to a nationwide backlash from teachers, students, and parents who are sick of overtesting. I was glad to see the President's comments. He is right about students taking too many tests. But I hope the President will stop and think before trying to cure overtesting by telling teachers exactly how much time to spend on testing or what the tests should be. Classroom teachers know better than Washington how to assess their students' progress. They also know that the real reason we have too many tests is that there are too many Federal mandates that put high stakes on student test results and that one more Washington decree--even if it is only a recommendation for now--is not the way to solve the problem of too many Federal mandates. Instead, the best way to fix overtesting is to get rid of the Federal mandates that are causing the problem. That is precisely what the Senate did when it passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, 81 to 17, legislation to fix No Child Left Behind and give more flexibility to States and to classroom teachers to decide which tests will decide what progress students are making in the classroom.…”