Hallelujah! There is hope.

Texas–Texas!!–has decided to stop using standardized tests for NCLB. Texas has been in the forefront of the movement to use such tests for a good 25-30 years, so this is Big News. Apparently they’re going to use year-end exams instead (hopefully created by at least districts, if not schools or teachers, rather than the state–I didn’t catch that part, I learned this on the national news last night, not exactly a detailed or nuanced source. My own best recommendation would be for teachers to create the exams themselves, in accord with district guidelines, but that the guidelines be flexible enough for sanity to reign in the process. The tests could be turned in to the district so administrators and others could see test content and level and see that tests followed the guidelines.)

Hopefully, this will give some control over the curriculum back to teachers, so they can actually pay attention to their students and what they need and what they are actually understanding and learning, instead of being held lock-step to a curriculum guide created by people far away from the classroom.

I’ve been waiting for the pendulum to turn, for enough people to notice the bad effects of all the testing, testing, testing and the accompanying hysteria. There have been a few signs of growing dissatisfaction outside as well as inside schools, and of people trying to organize to fight the juggernaut. But this is a major glimmer of light, a real sign that things may actually change for the better. It’s been a long time coming.

Now I gotta get back to work, prepping and marking papers, but with a bit of renewed energy. Maybe things will actually get better before I retire; maybe my current students will be able to teach well with the support of their system, instead of having the fight the system to do what’s best for their students.