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Obama Agrees: Kids Are Swamped with Tests!
For years, parents have been up in arms about the sheer number of standardized tests our kids face in school. Well, it turns out President Obama is finally on the same page as us!
In a recent video message shared on the White House’s Facebook page, Obama advocated for limits on the number of standardized tests kids are subjected to each year. He pledged to work “aggressively” with the Department of Education to bring back creativity into classrooms.
Under his administration’s direction, the Department of Education aims to ensure that students are only taking high-quality tests that support solid teaching and avoid repeating the same material. Obama emphasized that testing should be just one of the many ways we gauge academic success, as “learning is about so much more than just filling in the right bubble.”
According to the Washington Post, kids are taking an astonishing average of 112 standardized tests from pre-K through 12th grade! That’s roughly 20 to 25 hours spent on tests each school year—not counting the time they spend preparing for them. It’s overwhelming and frankly, quite ridiculous.
CNN reported that 53% of parents feel their elementary-aged children are stressed out by homework and testing. A separate study by Yale found that a significant majority of 22,000 high school students reported feeling either tired or stressed while at school. It’s disheartening to see kids losing their joy and freedom to learn.
The surge in testing can be traced back to Bush’s No Child Left Behind policy and continued with the adoption of Common Core standards. While Obama’s new initiative won’t eliminate Common Core, it aims to limit the number of assessments schools use, promoting a more balanced approach to measuring student learning.
The bottom line? Our kids are struggling. They’re worn out and overburdened, with the joy of learning being drained away. Parents have been raising alarms about this for ages, and it’s about time the President encourages educators to listen.
Endless testing zaps the fun out of education and restricts teachers from delivering engaging lessons. It creates an environment where kids associate school with stress and exhaustion. If we want our children to thrive, we need to help them fall in love with learning again. That means cutting down on those 25 hours each year spent on mindless bubble-filling.
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In summary, President Obama’s acknowledgment of the excessive testing our kids face is a significant step towards restoring balance and creativity to education. We must prioritize our children’s love for learning over test scores to ensure they have a fulfilling educational experience.