Hamilton County school officials will look into ways to reduce the amount of benchmark testing after some board members called for changes, saying the tests are an unnecessary stressor for students and teachers.
County students take benchmark tests three times a year to assess their progress and identify learning gaps.
During Thursday’s board meeting, district officials said benchmarks are valuable tools that help educators adjust their instruction and have allowed the district to move forward. Several board members expressed concerns about students being tested too often.
“I’ve also been on the board long enough to hear the word data where it haunts me in my dreams,” said school board member Ben Daughtery, R-Signal Mountain, who joined the board in September. “It almost seems like there’s this religious-like fascination with data. One of my questions is at what cost are we pursuing this data? Because from my perspective, when it comes to benchmark testing, we are asking an incredible amount of responsibility for our teachers and putting a momentous burden on our children when it comes to the expectation that they complete these tests.”