Chattanooga Principal Urges State Leaders to Cut Back on Testing

CHATTANOOGA, TN (WDEF-TV) – Principal Jill Levine is back at Normal Park Museum Magnet School in Chattanooga.
She spent a year at the U.S. Department of Education in the Principal Ambassador Fellowship Program.
That’s where she was often referred to as the Nation’s Principal.
Levine told the Rotary Club Thursday that Tennessee educators may be headed in the wrong direction.

JILL LEVINE, PRINCIPAL, NORMAL PARK MUSEUM MAGNET SCHOOL "The state of Tennessee has actually doubled the amount of testing that a 3rd or 4th grader would do this year."

The award-winning principal of Normal Park Magnet school says states, including
Tennessee seem to have an obsession with testing.

JILL LEVINE "The federal government recommended..just last week…that states start to scale back on that."

Jill Levine told the Rotary Club that during her year in the nation’s capital she saw a case where 92% of parents kept their children from taking numerous tests and the students tended to do better.

JILL LEVINE "As an educator I would say that what is most important is the time students are in classrooms learning And that every time we take away from classroom instructional time..students are losing out."

Levine is credited with turning two low-performing schools into innovative and successful places of learning.
She was named National Principal of the Year by Magnet Schools of America, and Normal Park has won the highest honor awarded by the same organization.
While at the Department of Education she had the ear of the top officials and developed programs to raise student achievement.
She discounts claims that many teachers are just looking to raise test scores.

JILL LEVINE "Yesterday the American Education Research association came out with a statement that the type of testing that we’ere using inn Tennessee is a value-added score actually are not reliable and shouldn’t be used to evaluate teachers the way we’re using them in Tennessee right now."

Educators will be watching to see how that will impact teacher evaluations from here on out.