Dive Brief:
- In many parts of the country, students opting out of standardized testing have been told to "sit and think" (or "sit and stare") while as peers finish the exam — a move that has raised the ire of anti-testing advocates.
- Describing the policy as a "punishment" for students not taking tests, anti-test advocates say it demonstrates how exams kill creativity and create an anti-learning culture in schools.
- Some districts are giving students educational worksheets or having them read a book if they are sitting out the exam, but others say they just don't have the resources to supervise non-testing students in a different setting.
Dive Insight:
Does it make sense for students to be "punished" because they or there parents would prefer they sit out high-stakes exams? This is a question many districts now find themselves mulling over.
“Our expectation was they were going to take the assessment,” Brian Schmitt, a New York superintendent told the New York Times. Schmitt, whose district doesn't give students alternative activities, added: “We were not going to reward them by having them do something that other students may perceive as either fun or more interesting than taking the assessment, because that’s not fair to kids who were doing the right thing.”
By not "rewarding" students, however, Schmitt and other school leaders are in many ways feeding the argument that testing culture kills creativity and takes the fun out of learning for testing and non-testing students alike. And while the policy may be meant to be a deterrent for students who might sit out the exam, it also indicates that some schools are OK with having students sit, without any learning objective, for hours.
