Tedisco: Time to Stop Using Standardized Tests as the “Holy Grail” for Students and Teachers

Senator Jim Tedisco (R,C,I,Ref-Glenville) today introduced new legislation to put an end to the testing madness in New York State’s schools that robs children of their love of learning and teachers of their creativity. 

Tedisco’s legislation (S.8301), which he introduced with Sen. Carl Marcellino, is a same as bill as one just put forth in the Assembly which decouples teacher evaluations from the grade 3-8 standardized ELA and Math tests. 

Tedisco, a former special education teacher, guidance counselor, athletic director and coach, is one of the few state legislators with actual real world classroom experience. Senator Tedisco has long championed the decoupling of these tests and giving our educators and schools more local autonomy to focus on helping our children learn and grow. When Tedisco was in the Assembly, he debated the failure of the tests on the Assembly Floor, led the opt-out movement with his Common Core Parental Refusal Act legislation and once asked the Governor to take the 5th Grade Common Core Test to prove if he’s smarter than a 5th grader. 

“Testing should not be the ‘Holy Grail’ of our educational system but just one measurement out of a holistic set of ways to evaluate a child’s development. Research indicates that any Value Added Measure (VAM) that utilizes one measurement to an inordinate level such as the 50 percent level as it in in law now is ineffective in correlating a teacher’s effectiveness as it relates to student learning,” said Tedisco.  

“Our classrooms should be places where students are able to be engaged in learning and teachers are inspired to help our kids learn and grow — not laboratories for testing for testing’s sake that just stigmatizes children and robs teachers of their creativity. It’s time we close the book on the era of over-testing and stop the testing madness once and for all,” said Tedisco.