STOCKPORT, Ohio — Sixth-grader Kayla Hunter considers herself pretty tech savvy. She has a computer at home, unlike about half her classmates at her elementary school. And it matches up well with the one she’ll use this week to take a new test linked to the Common Core standards.
Still, the perky 11-year-old worries. During a recent practice exam at her school in Ohio, she couldn’t even log on. “It wouldn’t let me,” she said. “It kept saying it wasn’t right. …”
Her state on Tuesday will be the first to administer one of two tests in English language arts and math based on the Common Core standards developed by two separate groups of states. By the end of the school year, about 12 million children in 29 states, including Maine, will take them electronically.
The exams are expected to be more difficult than the traditional spring standardized state exams they replace. In some states, they’ll require hours of additional testing time because students will have to do more than just fill in the bubble. The goal is to test students on critical thinking skills.
The tests have multimedia components, written essays and multistep calculations needed to solve math problems that go beyond just using rote memory.
But there’s been controversy.
The tests have been caught up in the debate playing out in state legislatures across the country about the federal role in education. Although more than 40 states have adopted Common Core, which spells out what reading and math skills students should master in each grade, several have decided not to offer the tests – known as the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, and Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC. Some states are introducing other standardized tests this year.
The Common Core tests fulfill the requirement in the federal No Child Left Behind law for annual testing in reading and math. But as Congress seeks to rewrite the education law, there’s debate over whether the tests should be required, and whether students are being tested too much.
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