I am by no means an expert on the topic of high stakes standardized testing. However, as an educator, I have on the ground experience and an opinion based both on that experience, my own education and solid-research based theory. This post, as evidenced by the title, will barely scratch the surface of the topic even though it may end up being one of my longer posts so far.
First, I want to share a few personal anecdotes, examples of both good and bed experiences with school-based assessment. The first clear recollection I have of what I considered to be an unfair assessment came in fourth or fifth grade. I craved the A honor roll yet kept being foiled by my reading grade, ironic for a girl who read books as frequently as she breathed oxygen. While I do not remember the story or the exact question, I do recall expressing frustration at a question that asked what color the main character’s shirt was. I could not figure out what on earth that random fact had to do with comprehension of the text.
In high school I succumbed to the peer pressure of taking the easy language class, Spanish. (That choice had a significant impact on my life but is for another post.)That easy class did not adequately prepare me for college level courses. I almost did not get to test out of the first semester of Spanish in college. Why? Half of the grade in that high school Spanish class came from homework which was a completion grade. We did not even check over the answers. My teacher walked around the room, casually glancing over the assigned page. I saw that many times some of my classmates wrote nonsense words in all the blanks and still earned credit. We could also earn 10 extra credit points for going to a local Mexican restaurant, 20 points on “Mariachi Night.” My learning suffered from poor assessment.
In college I took a basic chemistry course and managed to earn an A despite my non-existent chemist skills. That’s because my professor crafted appropriate assessments, assessments based on the curriculum he taught that unit. Beyond that, before each test he allocated a significant amount of time to reviewing the topics that would be on the test. As he reviewed those topics, I went through my notes and marked that information. My classmates, for the most part, groaned about how difficult his tests were. I did not understand at the time why they thought that when he lai8d out the test so clearly to us beforehand.
As far as high stakes testing is concerned, I remember those tests being administered far less often, maybe once a year. Yes, I did attend a private Christian school. However, I also attend pre-No Child Left Behind era. This piece of legislation grew out of good intentions but led to a harvest of unintended consequences. That one test was administered over one or at the most two days. My students endured five days of testing spread over three weeks. That was just the official state tests for each subject. My students also had testing in the fall (to show how much knowledge they lost over summer break, I assume) in math and English Language Arts, benchmarks at the end of the first three quarters, testing again in the spring and a field test for the writing portion of the state ELA test. Anyone with half a brain can see that that is beyond excessive.
So where do we stand? To paint an accurate picture, I have to step back and look at the purpose for high stakes testing. At its roots, testing is meant to evaluate schools and hold them accountable to the high standard of excellent education for every student. Every student deserves an excellent education. Schools should provide this. Teachers should be well equipped to prepare and present that education in the form of daily classes in particular subjects. These teachers should strive to continually learn and grow through professional development that each district should provide for its employees. Local governments should provide adequate funds to compensate teachers properly and provide students with any and all resources each student needs to succeed. Parents should engage in the schools of their children and their local communities to hold educators and lawmakers accountable.
That’s a lot of “should”s.
The rubber meets the road when it comes to translating the “should”s into reality. How does every person in this process execute their jobs as prescribed? For many, the answer is testing. This testing, ideally, provides data on the effectiveness of the application methods implemented at every level of the education process. I am a huge believer int he use of data for analysis and application. If you don’t learn what works and what doesn’t, you run the risk of insanity caused by repeating the same action expecting different results. I also firmly believe that, just like words, data can be misappropriated, taken out of context, or simply be faulty. If the data does not actually measure what it is being used to evaluate, it has been misappropriated. If the data collection process falls prey to flaws whether intentional or accidental, any analysis based on that data is invalid and should not be used for decision making. Furthermore, data can be manipulated to produce desired results, especially if the flaw is introduced at the time of collection.
Here is how these flaws play out when it comes to high stakes testing. First, I teach middle school. Countless verified studies have proven that developmentally, the students are not physically capable of performing at an optimal level while also sitting for several hours each day without talking. There are outliers, of course. However, this developmental factor should play an important role in creating accurate assessments.Second, teachers are not, for legal reasons, ever given access in any way to the assessment. The reason behind this is obvious. With such enormous stakes leveraged on the results of each test, the pressure to cheat weighs heavy on many teachers and administrators. However, the extreme crack down on security has consequences that reach far beyond cheating prevention. The most significant is that teachers are unable to prepare their students for this all important test. I am talking about a concept fundamental to accurate assessments. When a teacher creates an assessment, she should create one that gathers data on what the students mastered after competent instruction. It should not be designed as a trap ready to spring on unsuspecting victims. After experiencing this round of testing, even without seeing any of the questions, I am drawn increasingly to the hypothesis that the questions on these tests lean towards the completely invalid method of assessments, those designed to trick the students, however inadvertently.
For example, ELA testing started with a writing test. Several weeks before that test, students took a field test. That field test consisted of one writing question. That made sense to me for an assessment of writing. Then came the actual test. That test contained way more than one question. Obviously, I do not know the content of the questions; I like my job and want to keep it. However, logic dictates that those questions must have concerned grammar and/or the writing process. This troubles me because the information given to us early in the year was that unless grammar errors interfered with understanding, said errors would not factor into the students’ scores. Thus, after receiving this directive, as much as it pained me, I modified my instruction accordingly. When it came time for the assessment, imagine my surprise and that of my students when more than one question appeared on the writing test. I felt terrible. I want so much for my students to succeed. That test, however, if it in fact looked like what I hypothesize it to have looked like, would have made the students feel less than. When a child continually fails, they internalize the belief that they are failures. When the student faces this sort of failure again and again in a short period of time, this internalization crystalizes and takes root.
A third flaw comes into play with regards to teacher evaluation. Most people realize that a teacher should not be evaluated solely on the test scores of the students. Some, however, persist in this terrible avenue. Charleston County Schools has recently dealt with something that could become a crisis. Rumors circulate that teachers are being evaluated on the test scores, the sole criteria. This potential crisis has reached the point of causing a principal to resign and publish his resignation letter in which he explained that he refused to evaluate his teachers on that sole criteria and thus was reassigned to a new school before he resigned.
Don’t misunderstand, I firmly believe that teachers should be evaluated and routinely held accountable. Test scores, if the test is valid and measures applicable data sets, can be used as one measure amongst several in teacher evaluations. Those sterile numbers do not factor in the child who forgot to take his medicine that morning after staying up all night on Snapchat. He just wanted to sleep so when faced with the prospect of part two to the test, clicked random answers for the remaining questions and presented the review page a mere 30 seconds after starting the second part. Those scores do not account for a student so new to the country that he has no paperwork in place to provide the same oral accommodations that some ESOL students who have been in the program for years. Those scores do not account for the student who decides, for no apparent reason to have a temper tantrum, shut off his computer mid test and lay full out on the floor.
If you wanted to play devil’s advocate, you could argue that good data factors in the inevitable outliers so that the average score is what is used for the purpose of teacher evaluation. That might work if these examples were outliers. I could, unfortunately, continue to list student testing behaviors that should not reflect on the teacher. Simply put, at least a the middle school level, students are not capable of sitting without fidgeting in complete silence for more than two hours, sometimes three.
Fourth, the high stakes nature of these tests comes from weighty purse strings and increased pressure from district personnel. My school, which I love immensely, ranks extremely low in terms of test scores. Because of these low scores, my district has allocated increased funding for reading and math as well as pressure to bring the scores up because the district has shelled out the money. Those purse strings and the responsibility that comes with them, comes at the expense of science, social studies, music, art, world languages and everything that helps complete a student’s education. Bills have recently come before the South Carolina congress eliminating or reducing testing in science and social studies. Every science and social studies teacher’s gut response is “Don’t cut testing! Our subject matters too!” Most of those teachers would also, if able, point out the flaws and shortcomings of those tests. Thus, their argument for continued testing of their subject succumbs to logical fallacy. The ends, adequate promotion of critical subjects like science and social studies, does not justify the means, ill-designed tests that gather invalid data.
After all this, where do we stand? The thing that is clearest to me is that the system is broken and in need of a fix. That fix will require hard work, political capital and the magic it-factor yet to be discovered.
These kids are worth it.