Last Friday, The Cardinal Newman Society reported on a short, two-minute interview given to EWTN Nightly News the previous day with positive reactions to certain provisions of the federal government’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), signed into law by President Obama last Thursday. The law replaced the deeply problematic No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 which brought about lasting damage to American education by, among other things, increasing federal intrusion into public schools, emphasizing harmful high-stakes testing using unrealistic metrics and laying the ground for the flawed Common Core experiment with national standards.
As promoters of the value of a liberal arts education, we question the value and wisdom of excessive high-stakes testing. The number of mandated tests students have to take will shift from federal jurisdiction to state control under ESSA, with students still being required to take reading and math exams in grades three to eight, and one mandated test while in high school.
As promoters of the value of a liberal arts education, we question the value and wisdom of excessive high-stakes testing. The number of mandated tests students have to take will shift from federal jurisdiction to state control under ESSA, with students still being required to take reading and math exams in grades three to eight, and one mandated test while in high school.