Louisiana’s public schools are starting a three-year shift to
more rigorous testing of public school students, using a set of
uniform standards that education officials say are designed to
better prepare students for college and careers. The transition
will change what items are included in the standardized tests
given each spring to students in third through eighth grades and
in the end-of-course exams given to high school students. It
also changes how teachers instruct their students to account for
the new types of assessments used in the tests. “We’re not
talking about more tests. We’re talking about tests that are
going to be a little more difficult. They’re going to call our
students to a higher level of rigor, and they’re going to call
our teachers to a different type of teaching,” said
Superintendent of Education John White. Changes, for example,
include questions that are more open-ended and require written
responses, rather than just multiple choice answers. Math
questions will call for students to j