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Finally, Obama Denounces America’s Standardized Testing Obsession

by Lien92Bjigz Posted on October 26, 2015

Mother Jones

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Read more about the overloading of standardized tests.

On Saturday, the Obama administration announced that its push towards high-stakes standardized testing had gone too far and urged schools to limit tests to those that were meaningful indicators of progress. Specifically, the administration called for a cap so that no student would spend more than two percent of classroom time on standardized tests, and called on Congress to “reduce over-testing.”

“Learning is about so much more than filling in the right bubble,” the president said in a speech posted on the White House Facebook site.

The announcement represents a significant change in course for the Obama administration, which had been facing mounting bipartisan criticism for focusing too much on tests at the expense of a focus on creativity and critical thinking. According to a report by the Council of Great City Schools which reviewed the country’s 66 largest school districts, students are required to take about 112 standardized exams between kindergarten and 12th grade.

It’s unclear how much a two percent cap on tests will truly affect students; according to the Council of Great Schools report, the tests fall most heavily on eighth graders, who spend 20 to 25 hours, or about 2.3 percent of classroom time, on standardized tests. Furthermore, the announcement didn’t address the amount of time spent preparing for tests.

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If our kids had more free time at school, what would you want them to do with it? A) Learn to play a musical…

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Still, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, called the announcement a victory. “The fixation on high-stakes testing hasn’t moved the needle on student achievement,” she said in a statement. “We need to get back to focusing on the whole child—teaching our kids how to build relationships, how to be resilient and how to think critically.”

Outgoing Education Secretary Arne Duncan acknowledged that “At the federal, state and local level, we have all supported policies that have contributed to the problem in implementation.” Duncan is meeting with Obama today to discuss how to limit redundant and low-quality testing.

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Finally, Obama Denounces America’s Standardized Testing Obsession

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And the Prize for Ebola Fearmongering Goes to Louisiana

by Wyatt3221cnnews Posted on October 13, 2014

Mother Jones

Louisiana attorney general Buddy Caldwell has a plan to stop Ebola: file a restraining order. Caldwell, a Republican, called the proposal to dispose of Dallas Ebola victim Eric Duncan’s incinerated belongings at a Lake Charles landfill “absurd” and pledged to use the legal process to stop the transfer. WBRZ Baton Rouge reports:

“We certainly share sadness and compassion for those who have lost their lives and loved ones to this terrible virus, but the health and safety of our Louisiana citizens is our top priority. There are too many unknowns at this point,” Caldwell said. The Louisiana Attorney General’s Office is in the process of finalizing the application for temporary restraining order and expects it to be filed as early as Monday morning.

Additionally, the office is sending a demand letter to Texas state and federal officials, along with private contractors involved seeking additional information into the handling of this waste.

Caldwell, whose decision was quickly supported by GOP Gov. Bobby Jindal, didn’t offer any details on how burying the incinerated materials would affect the people of his state. It’s hard to see any risk—Ebola is transmitted only through bodily fluids, and Chemical Waste Management Inc., which operates the storage facility, sees no problem. And it’s not as if the ashes are going particularly far, anyway—Lake Charles is just a quick jaunt over I-10 from Port Arthur, Texas, where Duncan’s belongings were burned.

But Caldwell’s stance is especially bizarre in light of the great lengths Louisiana lawmakers have gone to position the state as a repository for every other kind of waste. Fracking-waste disposal, for instance, has become a $30-billion industry nationwide over the last decade. Much of that waste water has been dumped into old wells in Louisiana. Louisiana may also soon begin accepting thousands of tons of other states’ shale waste-water, which will be shipped down the Mississippi on barges. In Louisiana you can even store radioactive materials in an abandoned salt cavern, and then, after the salt cavern collapses, creating a massive sinkhole and forcing hundreds of people to permanently relocate, pour wastewater directly into the sinkhole. Just don’t try to truck the ashes of an Ebola victim’s belongings across the Sabine.

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And the Prize for Ebola Fearmongering Goes to Louisiana

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