The US Department of Education says Georgia’s schools should not expect their standardized testing to be waived again
ATLANTA — Georgia school superintendent Richard Woods has some strong words for the U.S. Department of Education after receiving a letter Thursday from Secretary Betsy DeVos.
Earlier this year, the state submitted a waiver to the U.S. Department of Education for the suspension of the 2020-21 Georgia Milestones assessment and CCRPI school and district rating.
But the US Department of Education says that is a no-go.
Earlier this year, Georgia became one of the first states in the nation to suspend standardized testing requirements in the wake of the COVID-19 school closures.
The measure was then approved by the U.S. Department of Education, cancelling all remaining standardized tests in the 2019-2020 school year.
Woods released a statement Thursday upon receiving DeVos’ letter that expressed his displeasure with the department’s decision.
“I have to be completely candid with my thoughts on this decision. It is disappointing, shows a complete disconnect with the realities of the classroom, and will be a detriment to public education.
Though testing is a federal requirement, I have worked in earnest to get our state requirements in line with the federal minimum. This legislative session, we worked with Governor Kemp and state lawmakers to cut the number of high-stakes tests in high school in half and move the testing window toward the end of the school year, preserving instructional time.
Despite these reforms, today’s decision from USED is definitively a setback. Secretary DeVos’s letter claims that “parents agree” assessments should resume in the midst of the pandemic, but in Georgia, 98,000 people weighed in on our waiver request and 96% were in agreement with it. This announcement from USED disregards their voices and input.
Secretary DeVos’s letter does state that USED is “open to discussions about what, if any, actions may be needed how the results of assessments are used in your state’s school accountability determinations – so I am hopeful USED will grant the accountability portions of Georgia’s waiver.
And yet, in a year when instructional time is so precious, why cut into it with high-stakes testing? At a time when our economic outlook is still shaky and millions of dollars are having to be cut from our classrooms, why divert millions to high-stakes tests? At a time when families, students, and educators have understandable anxiety about returning to a new instructional environment, why add the additional stress of high-stakes testing?
Continuing to administer high-stakes tests during these unprecedented and uncertain times is, sadly, more about adults than the needs of students and teachers.
Those who push the rhetoric about moving forward with high-stakes summative testing during a pandemic show total disregard for the realities faced by our families,…
Read More: Ga Superintendent Richard Woods slams DeVos over testing waivers