The AFT believes that tests are an important tool to diagnose students' strengths and weaknesses and that, when used correctly, they can help teachers identify students who are falling behind and those who need more challenging work.
The AFT will be working with affiliates, communities, school districts and states to help ensure that testing does not encroach on the instructional time students need to learn how to think critically and creatively. The AFT's campaign, "Learning Is More Than a Test Score," includes a website, a toolkit and other items advocating an end to the over-reliance on testing and calling for the restoration of teaching and learning to its proper role at the forefront of the education process. Tests have a role to play, but today's fixation with them is undermining what we need to do to give kids a challenging and well-rounded education and to fairly measure teachers' performance," AFT President Randi Weingarten said. "Public education should be obsessed with high-quality teaching and learning, not high-stakes testing. The AFT's efforts to help all children succeed-by de-emphasizing testing and ensuring instead that instruction includes the arts and physical education and is based on high-quality standards such as the Common Core State Standards-began earlier this year with an online petition and a resolution stating that testing should inform, not impede, teaching and learning. WASHINGTON-The American Federation of Teachers announced today the second phase of its campaign against excessive testing, "Learning Is More Than a Test Score," which will include a policy agenda that takes into account what we learn from teachers, parents and others.
AFT's Weingarten: "Public education should be obsessed with high-quality teaching and learning,