Sometimes the Testing Monster created by politicos, techno advocates, school policymakers, and
administrators across the last 15 years must seem like one of RL Stine’s creations to its creators:
like Slappy, the dummy, now chasing them down the street and through the halls of power,
terrorizing their days, staring glassy eyed back at them from their desk chair, threatening their very
ways of life. Or like the Ghost of Spirit Moon Camp, possessing the spirits of their over-tested
victims.
Because now, the Testing Monster is not just frightening derelict teachers, and slacker children, and
poor parents who can’t afford fancy vacations for their kids- Now, the Testing Monster has turned on
its creators.
It is chasing politicians out of office (If you don’t believe it, just check the unemployed legislators of
Missouri). The Testing Monster is humiliating officials and billionaires in their favorite restaurants, or
on the way to work-- Beware the Taqueria and the Coffee Line. The monster is forcing once
powerful rich and elite to up their security details in fear of those it has possessed, and turning their
fellow parents into suspicious characters who won’t invite them to parties anymore. And the final
horror, making it impossible for the elite to find music teachers and art teachers for their gifted
progeny, because teachers are disappearing everywhere-- The Lost Teachers of the Gated Community.
So, how do we unhook and vaporize the monster well-intended Reformers have loosed that is
making our story into Welcome to The Dead Schools of America?
Here are the steps in the decommissioning process necessary to Unplug the Testing Monster:
1. Amend ESSA to no longer use test scores for rankings and funding.
2. Revoke VAM requirements at the state level. Take all testing data out of the teacher evaluation
process. A small input for growth measurements on authentic assessments won’t trigger the
monster.
3. Remove or reduce testing data as a measure in school accreditation procedures. Instead use the
age of the roof, the holdings of the library, and the water-tightness of the basement as a means of
checking against monsters.
4. Reduce testing budgets to 1/5th of their current levels if you have to have tests. (At 1/5th they can
exist for those who still love Testing and want to keep him as the Monster that Lives in Your
Basement or the Mummy in the Crypt, to frighten themselves occasionally) but beware his return.
5. Understand that the Testing Monster thrives on competition and begin to starve it. The push to
compete for test scores with other kids in the class, the school in the nicer neighborhood, and the
children chained to desks in Shanghai only makes the Testing Monster grow larger.
Save the children, Save Yourself. Stop feeding him.
