President Barack Obama and the Department of Education released a “Testing Action Plan” late last month, aiming to reducing the prevalence of standardized tests in U.S. public schools. Obama made the announcement during a Facebook video address where he criticized the current overemphasis on testing in the educational system, which eats away from valuable instruction time. While the new standards the administration has released are simply guidelines that school districts are suggested to follow, they have already received strong support from teachers unions, which have historically opposed standardized testing. If these new guidelines are adopted nationwide and receive the appropriate recognition and funding from Congress, it would be a welcome shift from an emphasis on testing to learning.

The Testing Action Plan represents a shift on the part of the Obama administration, whose Common Core initiative has been widely criticized due to the amount of testing the program requires. The 10-page plan explicitly calls on school districts to limit testing to 2 percent of the school year — around four days total — and to focus less class time on preparing for these exams. These proposals come after a recent report by the Council of Great City Schools that found students in urban districts take 112 standardized tests on average before graduation. Obama hopes to combat this by only using standardized tests that are high-quality and transparent, and which “enhance teaching and learning.” These proposed filters should help to promote a mentality in which tests are taken for the purpose of improving skills learned in the classroom and coincide with the concepts and topics being discussed by teachers.

However, Obama and the Department of Education must make more tangible reforms in K-12 education if there is any hope in shifting the current paradigm. A Gallup poll from August found that 64 percent of respondents believe there is an overemphasis on testing in our nation’s schools. While the Department of Education has promised to assist school districts in transitioning to a more targeted testing program through the use of federal grants, significant funding must also be obtained from the Congressional budget. As groups call on Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act — also known as No Child Left Behind — testing time should be formally reduced and other measures of assessment besides standardized exams should be explored. Rather than punishing schools that underperform on standardized testing, the government should instead reward school districts that are able to implement more innovative ways of assessing students’ comprehension.

Testing is an important tool that educators need in order to measure how well students are learning concepts and whether certain styles of teaching are better than others. That being said, the current application of standardized testing consumes too much valuable instructional time, presents a myopic view of students’ abilities and does little to further a student’s learning or understanding. With the right actions from school districts and Congress, the Testing Action Plan should help refocus U.S. education from mindless testing to learning and inspiration.

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Email Anand Balaji at [email protected].