Dear Next President,

Now that you're President, you are searching around the United States to solve to make it an easier and safer place. Some will be more important than others and some will impactful than others. While you're searching, I want to talk about an issue that is having a negative impact on school students.

The first issue I want to discuss is the time spent on testing. According to a comprehensive study of 66 of the nation’s big-city school districts spend between 20-25 hours preparing and taking the tests per year. That’s about 3 days of new material we could be learning. Also, the average amount of testing time devoted to mandated tests among eighth-grade students in the 2014-2015 school year was approximately 4.22 days or 2.34 percent of school time.

The second issue is testing has not improved student achievement. May 26, 2011, National Research Council report found no evidence test-based incentive programs are working: “policymakers and educators do not yet know how to use test-based incentives to consistently generate positive effects on achievement and to improve education.” It is kind of useless to have mandatory tests that do not show improvement in student learning and education.

My third and final issue is the cost of testing. Standardized testing regiments cost states some $1.7 billion a year overall or a quarter of 1 percent of total K-12 spending in the United States, according to a new report on assessment finances.  Now that is a lot of money to be spending on a test that is being given less than 3 times a year.  

If Standardized Testing is limited, more money will be saved and can go towards other improvements in schools and more time will be available for more student learning and creativity. So now that you have read this letter, it's time for you to make a change.

Thank you for reading, 

Montanna Andrews.

Sources Used:

Ujifusa, Andrew. "Standardized Testing Costs States $1.7 Billion A Year, Study Says". Education Week. N. p., 2016. Web. 18 Oct. 2016.

"Standardized Tests - Procon.Org". Standardizedtests.procon.org. N. p., 2016. Web. 18 Oct. 2016.

"Standardized Tests In Education: Advantages And Disadvantages - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.Com". Study.com. N. p., 2016. Web. 18 Oct. 2016.