By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – The bane of many public school teachers and students – standardized testing – could be in for an overhaul, if Illinois State Board of Education superintendent Carmen Ayala gets her way.

Her solution: more tests – shorter and more frequent. “A quick assessment result three times a year allows teachers and families to see students growth which is incredibly valuable for tailoring instruction,” Ayala told an Illinois House education committee hearing. Right now, most test results are not available until the following school year.

State Rep. Sue Scherer (D-Decatur) – a retired teacher with more than three decades in the classroom – chaired the hearing and told stories of principals taking up teachers’ lunch periods with questions about their preparation; and of the test nerves getting to elementary school students to the point at which they wet their pants or, as Scherer put it, “ran into the bathroom, jumped in the sink, and peed in the sink.”

An East St Louis senior, TaNyja Streater, said testing is no measure of her capabilities, as she is an A student who scored less than 1000 on the SAT.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]