Make It Stick

Superintendent Letter

High Stakes Testing

Sarita Shaw

Wake Principal Leadership Program

North Carolina State University

Dear Superintendent Johnson:

Thank you for gathering the opinions of those of us who are working directly with
students, and daily support public education in North Carolina. As of recent, the controversy of
the duration and application of testing has come to the forefront. I hope that you find the
following proposal applicable to our reform.

It is important that we put our focus towards the instruction of content rather than
towards test scores. Implementation of state-wide training and expectations around retrieval
practice, low-stakes quizzes, project-based learning, interleaving practice, and differentiated
instruction would be the first step to this shift (Brown, 2014). The next component of the shift
will reduce high-stakes testing to two times a year, beginning of year for review and action steps
for growth, and the same test at the end of the year to measure growth. This will transition our
testing into a tool used for learning, rather than a tool used for “hammering” teachers (Brown,
2014). The final component is student application. While application assessments are more
subjective, it is important that students are not tested on their testing skills, but on their
proficiency. Student agency in expressing their knowledge of a content area may change their
demonstration of proficiency and give our teachers and state a better gauge of student strengths
and abilities in regards to college and career readiness.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Sarita Shaw
WPLP
NC State University
 References

Brown, Peter C. (2014). Make it Stick : the science of successful learning.

Cambridge Massachusetts :The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press