mr. lazar. >> senator collins agree what we need to be focused on is growth and not growth as where this kid is in relation to where fourth graders are supposed to be but the student is compared to where they were. the thing i want us to be careful about is that it's the learning driving the assessment instead of the accountability driving the assessment. i think we do need to assess regularly. like miss lee said we assess our kid every day. i think parent need information about how schools are doing year to year. i don't think the federal or state government need accountability attached to yearly tests. i think shows should be used to inform practice. if we need federal and state accountability based on some sort of assessment let that be as small and little intrusion to real learning as possible. >> thank you. >> senator warren. >> thank you mr. chairman and i'm looking forward to working with you and ranking member murray on this committee this year. the federal government provide billions o

mr. lazar a more simplified question than what senator collins asked. my kids as adults never tested well. it is probably genetic. [laughter] but they didn't test well. so my question is this, is it more important that we know what student know or is it more important that we know that students are learning? dr. west? >> so it is much more important if we're trying to think about the performance of the school system to focus on what students are learning, because that's what schools have more of an impact on. what students know at a given point in time will be heavily influenced by genetics as you mentioned perhaps but by the family environment that they grew up on, a whole host of factors outside of the school's control. when we're thinking about accountability, it should be for student learning. >> mr. leather? >> it's a conundrum. i think to try to separate whether we need to know what a student knows versus whether they're learning. i don't see how you could go one way or the other. i think

the performance-bassed assessments that mr. lazar talked about to be able to judge, you know, as ms. lee said, no one assessment is going to be able to judge everything. so i think it is absolutely, again, this isn't an either or. to be able to have common, statewide measures, sophisticated measures, of student progress in literacy or math is, i any, essential. so you can see bhou e how kids are doing from district to district. you can see where are the best schools in the state working with english language lerners. if measurement from school to school or district to district you can't capture best practices. you can't understand where the most progress is being made. i think those should be short. i'd like to keep it to no more than four hours a year. then then welcome other more performance based assessment. if the state gets to that level, what the state looks at as well. >> anybody else want to weigh? >> on your kind of performance, don't you agree that if you're going to hold schools accountable, you have to have something that

mr. lazar. >> senator alexander, senator murray distinguidistingui shed members of this committee, it is an honor to testify before you all today. i come as a proud national board of certified public high school teacher. i teach that harvest collegiate high school the the new york city my students who are listening to us now, and i need to remind you to study for the history test tomorrow, represents the full diversity of our city. i'm also embarrassed to say i was a teacher who have been a teacher who have been made into last would get up to apologize to my students. i would tell them i have done my best job to be an excellent teacher for you up until now. but for the last month of school i'm going to turn into a bad teacher, to properly prepare you for state region exams but we would write essays and practice mindless repetition of facts so that they could be successful on their state exams. i did is because standardized tests measure the wrong things. .. when i taught seniors in the

i want to thank you and appreciate all of your forthcoming questions. >> mr. lazar. >> senator alexander, senator murray, just in which members of this committee, it is an honor to testify before you all today. i come as a proud national board certified public high school teacher. i teach at harvard's collegiate high school in new york city. my students you're listening to us now and do i need to remind to study for history test tomorrow represent the full diversity of our city. i'm also embarrassed to say i was a teacher who every me to last week it up to apologize to my students. i would tell them i have done my best job to be an excellent teacher for you up until now. but for the last month of school i'm going to turn into a bad teacher to properly prepare you for state regents exams. we within repeatedly write stock form like essays and practice mindless repetition of facts so that they could be successful on the state exams. i did this because standardized tests measure the wrong things. i did this because the stakes for my students force me to value three our

. >>> mr. lazar? >> senator alexander senate xx murray and distinguished members of this committee.it is an honor to testify before you all today. i come as a proud national board certified public high school teacher. i teach in a high school in new york city. my students who are listening to me now and i need to remind to study for a history test tomorrow, represent the full diversity of our city. i'm also em bargsed to say i was a teacher who every may until last would get up to apologize to my students. i would tell them i've done my best job to be an comment teacher for you up until now. but, for the plast month of school, i'm going to turn into a bad teacher to properly prepare you for exams. we would then practice mindless rep tigsz of facts so that they could be successful on their state exams. i did this because standardized tests measure the wrong things. i did this because the states for my students force me to value three hours of testing over a year of learning. i did this because the standardized test was the only way for my students to demonstrate their learning to the