A teachers’ union in Maryland recently launched an advertising campaign aimed at reducing the number of standardized tests teachers are required to give to elementary and high school students.
According to an Aug. 31 Washington Post article, the Maryland Educators Association (MEA) kicked off its statewide “Less Testing, More Learning” campaign with two weeks of television commercials aired throughout the Baltimore and Washington, D.C. areas.
The half-million dollar campaign will last throughout the month of September and will use a combination of television, radio and digital advertising. Advertisements will feature 10 teachers, each explaining how testing has interfered with their students’ education and learning.
“Anything that isn’t tested gets put on the back burner — it’s just test, test, test, and they’re taking away things that kids need,” a teacher says in one of the advertisements. “Now it seems like there’s testing on top of testing on top of testing…when they’re subject to this kind of testing year after year, we can’t get that time back for our kids.”
The MEA, which represents more than 70,000 educators, joins a growing body of criticism toward standardized testing from teachers, parents and students across the country. With its campaign, the union hopes to bring the issue to the forefront of the 2016 General Assembly session, said MEA spokesman Stephen Hershkowitz. In doing so, state legislators will be pressed to pass test reduction laws.
With more than 95% of Americans today reporting that they are regularly reached by mobile advertisements, it’s not a bad choice for the MEA to invest in digital advertisements for an online, mobile audience — an audience that dominates web use today.
And although Gov. Larry Hogan typically opposes the union’s views, the testing issue has been one area in which the two have agreed, making it more likely that legislation will be signed into law next year, EducationDive.com reported.