Study: Tests eat up 2.3% of class time

Kids take 100-plus required exams through 12th grade.

WASHINGTON — Students, parents and teachers have long lamented the hours that kids spend taking standardized tests, especially since the introduction of the Common Core academic standards. But just how much time each year is it? A. Between 10-15 hours. B. Between 20-25 hours.

C. Between 30-35 hours.

The correct answer is “B,” according to a comprehensive study of 66 of the nation’s big-city school districts by the Council of the Great City Schools. It said testing amounts to about 2.3 percent of classroom time for the average eighth-grader in public school. Between pre-K and 12th grade, students took about 112 mandatory standardized exams.

The study analyzed the time spent actually taking the tests, but it did not include the hours devoted to required preparation. It also did not include regular day-to-day classroom quizzes and tests in reading, math, science, foreign languages and more.

In connection with the study’s release Saturday, President Barack Obama called for capping standardized testing at 2 percent of classroom time. Even while acknowledg- ing that the government shares some responsibility for an over-emphasis on testing, the president said federal officials would work with states, schools and teachers to “make sure that we’re not obsessing about testing.”

The Obama administration still supports annual standardized tests as a necessary assessment tool, and both House and Senate versions of an update to the No Child Left Behind law would continue annual testing. But the rewritten legislation would let states decide how to use test results to determine what to do with struggling schools. Differences between the two bills still need to be worked out.

“Learning is about so much more than just fill- ing in the right bubble,” Obama said in a video released on Facebook. “So we’re going to work with states, school districts, teachers and parents to make sure that we’re not obsessing about testing.”

To drive the point home, Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan met in the Oval Office on Monday with teachers and school officials working to reduce testing time. The No Child Left Behind Act signed by President George W. Bush in 2002 mandated annual testing in reading and math.