So many tests, so little benefit. One problem with education today to be the near absence of cost-benefit analysis. Those PARCC tests? How much did they cost? Was anyone asking? What did we get for our PARCC test money? So far we are over half a year out since they took the computerized versions of those tests and we still don’t know what happened. We don’t even have all the test results. Because that test cannot be compared to other state tests it replaced, we know less than we would have known if our students had never taken the test.

Maybe we would have been better off using the money to feed chickens. Decent-sized chicken portions in school lunches would be a clear win. Big chicken legs or PARCC tests? I would vote with the chickens. I know many parents, teachers and especially students who would happily have fed chickens personally to avoid that test.

Where were the cost-benefit analyses that could have shut the test down? We shoveled out money and, worse, classroom minutes for that test. Did anyone stop to wonder how much bang we were getting for our buck? And whether we should have been spending our money on chickens instead?