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AUGUSTA — Sen. Nate Libby, D-Lewiston, has introduced a bill to comprehensively study standardized testing in Maine. The bill recently received a public hearing before the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, according to a news release from the Maine Senate Democratic Office.
The bill, LD 573, directs the Maine Education Policy Research Institute to conduct an audit of standardized testing in a random sample of school administrative units statewide for the purpose of understanding the amount, cost and usefulness of standardized testing. MEPRI would then report those findings, along with recommendations for action, to the Education Committee, the release said.
“As legislators, we too often get only anecdotes about problems in our communities and our schools,” said Libby. “The goal of this legislation is for policymakers to gain a better understanding of the positive and negative effects of the current standardized testing regime in Maine in 2017 with empirical data, not anecdote alone.”
Rep. Roger Fuller, D-Lewiston, spoke in favor of the bill at the hearing. “I want us to pause a bit and figure out what we want, and how we measure what we want, before we ask any more from our teachers and our students,” said Fuller.
The Maine Education Association also spoke in favor of the bill. “In my nearly 20 years as an educator, I cannot remember a single instance of a standardized test being removed from the list of those required by my district or the state and federal governments, although a few have been replaced,” said Dan Allen of the MEA.
A similar audit was recently conducted in Minnesota. The audit showed that while standardized “tests do accomplish their primary goal as a tool for comparing student performance across different classrooms, schools and districts,” they are also “costly and time-consuming and teachers often don’t find the information they provide useful,” according to reporting from the Twin City Pioneer Times.
The Education and Cultural Affairs Committee will make recommendations on LD 573 in the coming weeks. The bill will then be subject to votes in the House and Senate.
