TEDx Stanford 2015: Turning Point

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Linda Darling Hammond gave a talk titled “Testing…Testing…” at TEDxStanford 2015: Turning Point. This event brought to the stage some of Stanford's most accomplished pioneers in the arts, science, medicine and social sciences for day of short talks and performances. 

Linda Darling-Hammond detailed policies intended to improve education in the United States that might actually be holding students back. The current emphasis on standardized testing, she said, places too much emphasis on learning how to ace tests, a skill that is virtually useless in the real world.

"Between 1999 and 2003, more new knowledge was created in the world than in the entire human history preceding it," Darling-Hammond said. "Our young people are going into a world where they will use knowledge and technology not discovered or invented yet to solve complex problems that we can't solve yet. They need a lot more than the ability to pick one answer out of five."

A potential solution, she said, would involve developing schools where students face fewer but deeper assessments and spend more time learning how to solve problems and deal with complex situations, and engage in a wider range of topics that promote higher-order thinking skills.