The later in the school year that students take a standardized test, the more they know and the better they should do on those tests.
Or so say members of former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist’s education reform committee, who identified later testing as one of the ways to improve education in Tennessee.
While many high school end-of-course exams are given at the end of May, the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program tests given to elementary and middle school students are scheduled between March and April, in some cases six weeks before the end of the school year.
As a way to use student data and test scores to enhance learning, members of Dr. Frist’s State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) committee want to “identify options for reducing the turnaround time for grading assessment tests to allow TCAP and end-of-course exams to be given during the last four weeks of school,” according to the final SCORE report released in October.
After standardized tests are given in March or April, classroom rigor often is relaxed for the remainder of the school year, committee members said.