Open Letter to the Hamilton County School Board and HCS District Leadership:
My name is Jeremy Barrett, and I teach high school mathematics here in Hamilton County Schools. For 24 years I’ve taught through six superintendents, several curriculum changes, a dozen iterations of class schedules, two statewide grade scale overhauls, and, most recently, the overcaffeinated rise of benchmark testing.
Benchmark testing. Three times a year. Every year. Like a redundant, blinking cursor in the middle of a document no one is reading.
Now, let me concede a point right away, because gray areas deserve a moment in this age of binary opinions: I fully acknowledge that at the elementary level, benchmark testing may yield slightly more sincere effort. Younger students are, by and large, more eager to please, less jaded, and still under the spell of adult authority. They’ll at least try on these tests. But even then—even then—the question must be asked: is this the best way to get the information we’re after?
Because the data these tests produce—at all levels—can be obtained in other ways. Better ways. Ways that don’t stress out kids, blow up instructional time, siphon off already-thin resources, and contort school schedules into something that looks like a Kafkaesque jigsaw puzzle made by someone who hates children and calendars.
Let me say this plainly, because I’ve tried nuance, and nuance gets eaten alive in the land of data dashboards: benchmark testing is not working. It’s not even failing creatively. It’s just—expensively—flopping.
At the secondary level, our students don’t take it seriously. You know this. I know this. The students know we know this. They click through questions like they’re trying to win an imaginary speed-based scholarship to nowhere. Some finish in under five minutes. Some nap. Some “abacadaba” the test. And then we, the teachers, are told to use this data. Discuss this data. “Dive into” this data.
It’s not a dive. It’s a faceplant into a shallow kiddie pool of shaky metrics.
Now, I say all this as someone who truly loves data. I watch YouTube videos about data. I own data-themed socks. I am a member of the unfortunately named Reddit community “Data is Beautiful.” But let me tell you something that every actual statistician and honest teacher already knows: just because data exists does not mean it’s valid, or reliable, or useful, or—this one’s important—meaningful.
But we treat it as if it is. We hold meetings, make color-coded charts, adjust schedules, all based on what is essentially glorified guesswork dressed in a cheap suit of pseudo-objectivity.
And the cost—oh, the cost! Financial, instructional, emotional. Time and money that could be spent on, say, buses, counselors, working air conditioners, or teachers who aren’t leaving the profession in droves. Instead, we spend it on a test no one believes in, administered three times a year like an expensive seasonal flu.
Now, I understand there’s been recent discussion about reducing the number of benchmark cycles from three to two in response to budget constraints. I appreciate that. Truly. Any step away from the data abyss is a good step. But let’s not settle for slightly less waste. Let’s stop the waste entirely. The best option—the bravest, most rational, and most cost-effective option—is to eliminate benchmark testing altogether.
Because while fewer tests is a win, no tests is a revolution. A quiet one, sure. Maybe even boring and bureaucratic. But a revolution nonetheless. One that says: we trust our teachers. We trust other forms of assessment. We believe in real, meaningful data—data gathered through work that matters, learning that lasts, and feedback that isn’t laminated and mass-produced.
I’m asking you to stop pretending. To stop forcing us into rooms with Excel files of false metrics and telling us to find meaning in a spreadsheet that means nothing. I’m asking you to give us our time back. Our trust back. Our ability to teach back.
I want to spend less time parsing imaginary trends in noisy nonsense and more time helping my students understand how exponential functions describe things like pandemics, bank accounts, and how fast our collective patience is eroding.
So yes, let’s be data-informed. But let’s make sure the data is real. Let’s stop squinting at garbage and calling it vision.
Jeremy Barrett