6 Reasons Your Kid Could Have Less Standardized Testing in 2016

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/12/29/6-reasons-your-kid-could-have-less-standardized-testing-2016

It’s been a rough year for standardized testing—the timed, fill-in-the-bubble-with-a-No. 2-pencil mental gauntlets feared by students, loathed by teachers, and loved by education policy makers, perhaps because they no longer have to take them. Testing started in earnest decades ago as a measure of academic skills and intensified in 2002 as education policy specialists suggested it could help students in the United States catch up with their global peers and measure how well public schoolteachers are doing their jobs.

But over the course of 2015, there were major disturbances in the testing universe. Students, with their parents’ blessing, chose not to take them; a growing number of colleges questioned their usefulness; and arguably the biggest official proponent of testing decided to leave his post. Here are the top six moments of 2015 that will influence what happens in classrooms next year.