Educators for Excellence Reacts to the Biden Administration Announcement on Assessments

February 23 (New York) — Educators for Excellence (E4E), a teacher-led organization that seeks to elevate the voices of teachers in education policy, today applauded the Biden administration’s guidance on spring assessments. 

“As a classroom teacher, I have kept track of the damage that the pandemic has done to my students’ academic and social-emotional health,” said Carlotta Pope, 11th grade English teacher and E4E-New York member. “That is why I agree with the Biden administration’s decision—holding teachers and schools accountable for assessment results would have been a mistake, but not testing our students so that we can support their growth with data would be an even bigger mistake.”

“In a year that has presented as many challenges to education as ever, we need more information on student performance, not less. The Department of Education’s decision to continue to gather student data this year, but to refrain from using it for school or teacher accountability, is the right call and reflects what teachers want,” said Evan Stone Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Educators for Excellence. “In order to recover from low student engagement and historic learning loss, we need to conduct assessments this year to ensure that we understand each student’s needs and can make smart investments to support their learning.”

This guidance comes as welcomed news to educators across the country. According to Voices from the Classroom 2021, E4E’s nationally representative survey of America’s educators, 68% of all teachers agree that standardized testing should be used to identify which students and student groups are falling behind and need more resources and support. While teachers are nearly divided on whether the federal government should continue (47%) or postpone (53%) requiring states to administer assessments and report data this school year, only 11% of teachers prefer the federal government to continue requiring states to administer assessments, report data, and hold the districts and schools accountable for student results as usual. 

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