Announcements

Our Statement in Support of Students Who are Transgender, Non-binary, and/or Gender Expansive

VAMLE Transgender Support Statement

Our statement on standardized testing:

Vermont Association for Middle Level Education Statement  on the use of Student Standardized State Tests During the 2020 – 2021 Academic Year

We, the executive board members of the Vermont Association for Middle Level Education (VAMLE), wish to note our professional opposition to the administration of the annual Vermont Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) this Spring. Our responsibility as VAMLE Board members and as middle level educators and researchers is to promote best practice based on our mission: "VAMLE’s mission is to inform and guide all stakeholders dedicated to making education relevant and successful for Vermont’s 10-15 year olds." Our opposition is grounded in research-based knowledge and facts of the current academic environment noted in the points listed below.  








It is clear from a pedagogical perspective that external standardized testing of students will serve no purpose other than to reveal the obvious—students have suffered socially, emotionally, academically, and for many, even physically this year due to the learning conditions created by the pandemic. We, as middle level educators, understand young adolescents’ developmental processes; and it is clear from students’ voices that they are highly affected this year in ways that no one could have predicted due to the pandemic. 

The purpose of any legislatively produced educational policy is to either improve students’ learning or to help teachers in their pedagogical responsibilities (become better educators). Standardized testing seldom, if ever, meets those two critical criteria in a traditional academic year—testing certainly won’t improve students’ lives this year.

Our suggestions for improving students’ lives this year are to use the money usually reserved for testing protocols to

• hire additional counselors at all academic levels to assist students with their increased anxiety and stress;

• place the funds into infrastructure to build broadband access for more Vermonters;

• hire more teachers in lower socioeconomic communities to provide more and better support for those students;

• hire more teachers’ aides to assist those students with special needs.


We believe that the role of state education policy is to promote and create greater equity for all so as to improve the academic lives of all K – 12 Vermont students. This is a year when external standardized student testing data will likely reveal considerable deficits in student learning this past academic year—results that are painfully obvious to those professional educators on the front lines each day. Collecting these test data in this traditional manner serves no useful or valuable purpose this year. We call on the Agency of Education and the state legislative bodies to order a suspension of these tests this year in the best interests of students, caregivers, and our state’s professional educators.