Paperwork Creates Increasing Burden On Teachers

In a column in the Washington Post (11/12), Robert McCartney writes that the recent school board elections in Fairfax, Virginia, "raised awareness of a bureaucratic ailment that's becoming a regionwide classroom epidemic: the overburdening of teachers with paperwork." The Post blames the "mania for more student data" and "high-level monitoring of the data" as "demoralizing teachers and undermining education." McCartney writes that teachers are using time they used to devote to creating lesson plans to fill out paperwork, and says that the "national school reform movement" which "has placed a premium on using standardized tests to measure student achievement and hold teachers accountable for results" has "gone too far."