Opinion: Teacher Unions Contribute to Unnecessary Student Testing
Student testing has become a major topic of debate. This week, the New York State United Teachers released a statement criticizing the increase in testing but failed to take responsibility for the excessive testing.
In a New York Daily News opinion piece, education advocacy leaders Tim Daly and Joe Williams argue that teacher unions have contributed to the excessive student testing through the execution of the local bargaining agreement. The agreement allows tests not required by the state to be implemented in local districts.
Furthermore, Daly and Williams urges teacher unions to remove the agreement:
But if the union is sincere about reining in truly excessive testing and building truly useful evaluation systems, the easiest fix is to tackle this problem where it first arose: at the local bargaining table. There’s nothing stopping the state teachers union from taking action to fix this issue tomorrow.
