Feds: Standardized tests must be given this year
States will need to administer annual standardized achievement exams to students this year, but they can modify or delay the tests, the U.S. Department of Education said Monday.
In a letter to state education leaders, acting Assistant Education Secretary Ian Rosenblum wrote that the Biden administration will not consider “blanket waivers of assessments” this year.
Under federal law, states must administer annual exams in key subjects including reading and math to students in third through eighth grades and once in high school. The results of those exams can be used to judge schools, and sometimes teachers, on their performance, and they can trigger improvement efforts.
The requirement to administer state exams was waived by Education Secretary Betsy Devos in spring 2020, when most U.S. schools shut down as a result of COVID-19.
The new guidance from the Biden administration comes before its secretary of education nominee, Miguel Cardona, has been confirmed. During his confirmation hearing early this month, Cardona didn’t say whether the federally required exams should be waived again this year. He said it was important to assess student progress, but schools probably shouldn’t bring students back in person just to administer an exam.
States can decide whether to shorten the annual exams, administer them remotely or delay giving them until summer or fall, the new guidance says. Schools won’t be held accountable for the results of how students perform.
“Certainly, we do not believe that if there are places where students are unable to attend school safely in person because of the pandemic that they should be brought into school buildings for the sole purpose of taking a test,” Rosenblum wrote.
The announcement is a “frustrating turn” for the administration, said Randi Weingarten, president of the American
Federation of Teachers, the nation’s largest teachers’ union.
“As the educators in the classroom, we have always known that standardized tests are not the best way to measure a child’s development, nor do they particularly help kids or inform best practices for teaching and learning,” she said in a statement. “That is especially true in these unprecedented times, when students and teachers alike are remaking the school experience in the most unlikely of circumstances.”
But Carissa Moffat Miller, CEO of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said she supported the federal requirement, saying in a statement Monday that the announcement “acknowledges the real, varied challenges that educators, students, and families are facing across the country.”
“State education leaders and CCSSO deeply value assessment as a tool to know where students are academically, identify inequities, and inform decision-making, including ensuring supports get to the students who need them,” she said.
The National Parent Teacher Association released a survey Monday that found 52% of parents surveyed favored end-of-year testing this spring “to measure the impact of the pandemic on student learning.”
Developers are proposing a trio of buildings that would add nearly 500 student apartments just south of Ohio State University's campus.
The projects would stretch from North High Street and King Avenue to East 9th Avenue just east of High Street and replace more than a dozen older campus-area buildings.
The proposals continue the student housing building boom that has added about 2,000 new apartments along North High Street and West Lane Avenue
near OSU the past few years. Unlike conventional apartments, student apartments tend to rent by the bedroom, not the apartment.
The three proposed buildings, which are scheduled to come before the University Impact District Review Board on Thursday, are:
h A five-story building containing 143 apartments that would replace seven older houses on the north side of East 9th Avenue just west of Section Alley.
The proposal, by the Austin, Texas, student housing developer Parallel Co., would wrap ground-floor apartments around interior parking. Above the first floor, the apartments would overlook a courtyard on top of the parking deck.
The city's development department staff said it “generally” supports the proposal while seeking more specifics.
h A six-story building on the northwest corner of North High Street and West 8th Avenue containing 146 apartments on the site of what now contains Lucky's Stout House, the former Cousin's Army-navy store and two apartment buildings on East 8th Avenue.
The developer, Avenue Partners, is proposing a U-shaped apartment complex above ground-floor retail and parking for 129 vehicles. City development
department staff “generally” supported the proposal, while suggesting that the west side of the project, along Wall Street, be scaled back.
h A seven-story building on the southwest corner of North High and King Avenue that would include 188 apartments over ground-floor retail and parking.
The building would replace five older buildings on the site, although developers plan to incorporate the facade of the building immediately on the corner that now houses the Hippie Hut. Above the parking decks, the apartments would form an O shape around a courtyard. Amenities would include a pool and health center.
This is the latest incarnation of several proposals to develop the corner. Earlier proposals have met with resistance because of their size and the demolition of existing buildings. This version, by the developer Subtext (formerly Collegiate Development Group), further reduces the height, which started at 12 stories, to seven stories and down to two stories along the south side of the project.
The city's development staff recommended approving the project. jweiker@dispatch.com @Jimweiker