Education: Cancel standardized tests

Re: “Inslee signs emergency proclamation ordering schools to offer some in-person learning” [March 15, Coronavirus daily news updates]:

Gov. Jay Inslee signed an emergency executive order requiring all schools to return to in-person instruction for at least part of the day by April 19. Only days earlier, the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction issued the testing window for the spring, set to begin on April 12. While OSPI has stated it “intends to pursue testing flexibility by submitting a waiver request to the U.S. Department of Education to do a sampling methodology for the academic assessments,” the question is, given we are still in a worldwide pandemic, why?

With the governor’s new order, students will be returning to school buildings just as the testing window opens.

Our students have just experienced the most unstandard year of their lifetimes. Why on Earth would we morally and ethically subject them to a standardized test?

Testing supporters claim a test is needed to measure how the pandemic impacted student learning. Why not ask educators, the ones who have worked with students during the pandemic? Standardized tests are invasive and expensive, and eat up valuable time and resources. The time and resources would be better used to actually engage and instruct our students. Cancel the tests.

Martha Patterson, Silverdale