Both sides have is so wrong.
Testing has always been a poor measure or progress.
If a teacher cant assess the child's progress or achievement throughout the year on their own, then they are dropping the ball and not paying attention to the child's needs. We rely too much on testing in general that pigeon-holes the students into the same learning channel. It handicaps their own creative process and potentials as a individual and forces reform to meet testing standards. If teaching is geared toward how each child learns and not forcing the child to reform to how we teach and test, then real progress will be made. TESTS DON'T WORK.

...the Utah Basic Skills Competency Test, which students are to pass before graduation...

Pass it or don't you still get a diploma. The UBSCT is a H U G E waste of money.;

Does anyone really think Governor Huntsman cares what people think?

Like most programs Huntsman has purpose, he fails to do any type of analysis to confirm his thinking. No he simply bulls over anyone in the way and gets what he wants.

Keep the CRT and the Iowa for in-state assessment and for US comparisons. Toss the UBSCT out. But certainly do not waste money on an entirely new testing system. From what I have heard and experienced, school officials and teachers would like to see less state level testing and were not happy about the UBSCT when it was proposed and implemented. Formative testing should be and is already being conducted by good school teachers at the classroom level and between grade level professional learning teams.

I have to agree with the suggestion that teachers should be able to gauge the progress of their students throughout the year. Not all kids test well, no matter how smart they are. Testing, no matter how positive or simple, does funny stuff to the insides of most people. Testing and grading are archaic way of determining whether or not a kid is learning and comprehending. Their daily work, their participation in classroom discussion, their enthusiasm in being at school are all indicators of whether or not a child is adjusting, learning, growing intellectually. If our kids are achieving at or above the norm then what more do you need to know? If they aren't then address the reasons why not. Stop trying to stuff everyone in the same mold and in the same percentile.

Dr. Harrington if something takes five years to be accepted by the feds, our kids are going to suffer for almost half of their school life.

There is nothing that a test can tell me that I don't already know about my students. The government requires their tests because they don't trust me to do my job.

I am not familiar with the specific tests that they want to use, but my experience with other adaptive types of tests are that students quickly learn how to game them so that the results are not useful.

The state should invest its money more wisely on more teachers / smaller class sizes instead of paying test development companies millions for useless time wasters.