State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson is recommending at least a one-year moratorium on most state standardized tests not mandated by the federal government, starting next year. The respite would give districts and the state breathing time for more complex tests being created for the national Common Core standards. Those tests, in English language arts and math in grades three through eight and grade 11, will begin in the spring of 2015.

Tests that would be suspended, with the Legislature’s permission, would include second grade math and English tests, social science and history tests, most end-of-year high school math tests except for Algebra II and the summative high school exam, and most high school science tests.

Science tests for fifth, eighth and 10th grades would continue, since they’re required by the feds under the No Child Left Behind law, although the state will start developing tests for the new national science standards that the State Board of Education is expected to adopt this fall. In 2014, California Standards Tests in math and English Language Arts in grades three through eight and grade 11 also would be given one last time.

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  1. nicole 10 years ago10 years ago

    I am sick of standardized testing. Education in America is not for the students to learn it is for businesses and individuals to become rich. Publishing companies, printing companies , people who either never worked in public education or worked only for awhile are coming up with all of these ideas to sell to the State or school boards for money. You are not getting students ready for college by testing them to death and … Read More

    I am sick of standardized testing. Education in America is not for the students to learn it is for businesses and individuals to become rich. Publishing companies, printing companies , people who either never worked in public education or worked only for awhile are coming up with all of these ideas to sell to the State or school boards for money. You are not getting students ready for college by testing them to death and stripping teachers of tenure if the students don’t do well. The new word in education is rigor and high order thinking. People are telling teachers they want them to teach with rigor and have students think with high order. So why isn’t Duncan practicing what he and others preach. If so many states are asking for a waiver on the NCLB then something is wrong with it. Then change it and use your higher order thinking skills to create an educational policy that embraces a project based learning, some testing that doesn’t threaten students or teachers’jobs but one that helps and supports learning and teaching.