Test, test, test, and then test some more seems to be the only thought of the governmental overseers of education. Testing is unnecessary. Even pop quizzes and final exams are unnecessary as assessment tools. Teachers, those who are really teachers and not classroom behaviour managers anyway, know how their students are doing based on what goes on in their classes.

Testing wastes time and gives the public a false sense that something is happening to improve education. No Child Left Behind is a joke but it has hatched the egg of the monster of testing.

Howard is being wow-ed by computer people, who will make lots of money. He knows nothing about education, yet claims he is the savior for "dragging" public ed. "into the twenty-first century"! No one in Utah history has hurt public ed. more than Howard Stephenson. There are many more important things the students need - like more school buildings and lower class size. THESE would benefit kids far more than building a whole bunch more computer labs in each school and testing them more.

Teachers can more accurately judge students (with correct class size) than these tests. Yes, we need those as ONE of many evaluations. But teachers can see their faces and know a wider view of how those kids are doing. We don't need more testing than we already are doing!

You have to love Government. These well intentioned politicians who seem to forget or perhaps never understood that education does not equal testing. I have not yet figured out how stressing out elementary school students about test and more test is helping them and helping their education. Obviously if they are taking test after test they are not being taught. Don't get me wrong I believe we need to measure knowledge but honestly do we need weeks of testing in second grade to do so? Please.

We just got a new computer lab at school.

Unfortunately it was only 15 computers.

We have 34 kids in a class.

How do we do that one?

@anonymous lab
Any test-taking Utahn who passed the UBSKT knows the answer to that one.
34/15 = 2.27 mouses per computer.

vote democrat or at least get new republicans, people keep electing the same people and expect things to change it doesnt make sense. and i like the comment about the fifteen computers and 34 students really shows how short sighted the people can be.+

Have you ever thought that Utah Public Ed is controlled by BYU and USU and not the 'dreaded' Republicans? have you ever thought that the problems we see are not based on Rebuplican issues but rather a doing of the liberal colleges that our schools pay homage to? The testing you are speaking of and all that is required falls squarely within the aim of eMINTs, which is a fully Constructivist (Liberal) agenda pushed by our wonderful colleges? Now that being said, the testing of NCLB is not necessarily a bad thing given that is really tells those who understand testing a good snapshot of where our children are at, on the whole. Now, why are we not testing the programs that our schools choose to use? Why are we not testing the tests to make sure that we get valid data? Why are we not testing ourselves?

Once again Senator Stephenson has plenty of money for his pet project but no money for what would really help education. As already commented, lower class sizes!

I am concerned about several things. 1) Too much testing time for students decreases teaching time. 2) Will we lose millions of Federal money? 3) The substitute tests listed by the Panel,(EXPLORE, PLAN, and Acuplacer) are specific companies and will profit millions from testing the children of Utah. 4) There are not enough computers in schools to run these programs, let alone enough technical support personnel to help teachers with the computers. 5) The millions of dollars (from #3) could be better spent on lowering class size; look at the research on having 20-25 children in a classroom compared to 25-35 children.
I agree that ongoing, authentic assessment is critical; most teachers are taught this through USOE CORE Academy, university licensure classes, and principal directed professional development.
It seems to me the Panel needs to visit a variety of schools for a couple of weeks to see what's happening at the classroom level.