A representative of the Alabama Education Association used a Mobile County school board meeting to voice frustration over a new testing requirement he says has piled work onto local teachers.
Jesse McDaniel, who represents Mobile teachers for the AEA, told board members on March 24 that more than 10 educators had contacted him with complaints about the extra labor involved in writing End-of-Quarter Tests, or EQTs, for the district’s 54 elementary schools. Under the change, each school develops its own EQT rather than relying on tests produced by the central office or academic affairs.
“There’s been no expression of what the value of this is to measuring the district as a whole,” McDaniel said, arguing it was unclear how school-by-school tests improve systemwide assessment.
Superintendent Martha Peek said the shift grew out of a move to align the tests with the Alabama College and Career Ready Standards, known nationally as Common Core. Some principals and teachers, she said, asked for the latitude to build their own assessments. Early results on the new standards were uneven — the first-quarter scores were eventually discarded after steep drops in math and language arts.
Chief Academic Officer Karen Mohr said the work was assigned to teachers in an effort to reduce stress, since they best understand the standards their students must meet. McDaniel countered that no extra planning days were granted and that many teachers were preparing the tests on nights and weekends.
Peek characterized the reaction as mixed, saying most teachers and principals had welcomed the chance to study the standards more closely. Third-quarter EQTs were completed in late March.