John,
Our public schools are the heartbeat of our communities and a pillar of our democracy.
As one of Congress’s only former educators, I understand the importance of developing the value and ethic of lifelong learning skills as a fundamental piece of our commitment to education equity and racial and economic justice. We can no longer “teach to the test”.
That’s why I’m proud to introduce the More Teaching Less Testing Act created to build on the flexibility of the Every Student Succeeds Act and provide opportunities to design assessment systems that support high quality teaching and learning. We must end the oversuse, abuse, and misuse of standardized testing in our schools, and trade a broken metric for a system that empowers educators and communities to excite, inspire, and challenge their students.
We need a revolution in our public schools that unlocks the brilliance of all our kids and cultivates a generation equipped to take on 21st century challenges. Our schools should be funded and supported to foster the joy, curiosity, creativity, and problem solving skills of every child to reach their full potential. But today we spend less time teaching, and more time testing.
There is a constant emphasis placed on annually testing every student using standardized summative assessments. And this drastically and negatively affects what gets taught in our schools and how it is taught, and it is out of step with peer-reviewed research on K-12 assessments.
This bill would not eliminate summative assessments, but rather make space for a more balanced assessment system that would allow for both formative and summative assessments. It would engage educators, school leaders, families and advocates in determining appropriate limitations on assessment and test prep. This bill will take a crucial first step in fixing outdated requirements through common sense flexibility, and an approach based on the whole child and their learning experience.
John, we can work together to elevate student learning, guide teaching, and inform families about their students' progress on a regular basis. Please show your support for the More Teaching Less Testing Act by signing your name in solidarity of our collective work.
Peace and love,
Jamaal Bowman
