testing

It is that lovely time of year again...the time when high stakes standardized testing begins. Can I just say that I hate this time of year. For the past 3 nights, I have not been able to fall asleep. I lay down and suddenly begin thinking of things I still want to teach and reteach before the tests begin. It is so stressful. I am hoping that by typing out all of my thoughts, maybe I can get some rest.

No Child Left Behind was begun to help ensure that all children were getting a quality education. We know that children from impoverished homes and from minority backgrounds often underperform in comparison with their peers. Therefore, logic says, our schools are failing these kids. So therefore they passed laws that would help reduce this achievement gap or even eliminate it. I think/hope that they were passed with the best interests of kids at heart, but the implementation has been so faulty. Here are a few of my concerns about standardized testing and the effect it has had on public education. Because, sadly, I think No Child Left Behind has hurt education overall and done little to help it.

First, it is very difficult to quantify human learning. While it is true that nearly all kids who pass the test contain the basic knowledge and skills needed at that given age, it is not necessarily true that kids who don't pass the test don't have the basic knowledge. Passing does show basic understanding; failure does not always equal lack of understanding. A person with A's on their report card, as I"m sure many of you can attest, does not necessarily have to be smarter or know more than a kid with C's. But the child with A's has learned to play the game. And decides to play. I was an A student, and I loved school, and I totally played the game. But I had a friend in high school that I know was smarter than me in many ways whose grades weren't as good because he just didn't care about getting A's like I did. But he did fine and he just recently defended his doctoral thesis. Another friend of mine told me last week that he scored a 17 on the ACT because he "wanted to show it to the man" and just didn't care. He said he took a nap during part of the test. Anyway, my point is that lower grades or test scores don't necessarily mean a child doesn't know the subject matter.

Secondly, many of the tests are culturally biased. For example on the Iowa test, given about the 3rd week of 3rd grade, one of the questions shows a picture of a bridge and asks what bridge it is...it is the Golden Gate bridge. Now, if your family travels a lot and you have been to that bridge, you recognize it. If your family reads a lot, perhaps you have seen pictures of it and you recognize it. If you live in San Francisco, you recognize it. Otherwise, you have no clue...I mean why is that important to an 8 year old? That is just one example but there are countless examples of questions that favor the middle class white child over the poorer minority child. That is a fact. (And by the way, if a teacher knows a question will be on the test and teaches a concept specifically because it will be on the test,that is unethical and could result in serious problems, including loss of job. And questions change from year to year so it would be difficult to know what exactly is on the test anyway.)

Third, we are dealing with human beings. I understand that in most occupations, bonuses and other perks are based on results. But this is so much harder to do when working with human beings. Children don't come to school equally ready to learn. Some kids are like little sponges, and others have a much harder time learning. Much of this is based on their home environment (although other challenges such as learning disabilities also play a role). Kids who are read to, who have books in their home, come to school with a tremendous advantage over kids who have not been read to. When we are concerned about a child's progress and are considering testing for special education, we give a parent survey. This survey asks a lot of questions about the family's background, history, etc. So often when I give this survey, the parents tell me that they only finished 3rd grade or 7th grade themselves. They will explain that they are barely literate in their native language (or not at all) and that they are not literate in English. They will explain that they don't have a family doctor...they go to a clinic if they have to. They work two jobs and aren't home when their child comes home from school. They have suffered abuse. Or maybe their child has behavior problems and they don't know what to do. They are raising their child like they were raised and it just isn't working well and they have no way to access help to learn how to be a better parent. Their lives are hard. They can't help with homework, because they don't have the skills. I am not making excuses. These parents, most of them, love their children and desperately want their children to succeed. They want their kids to have a better life. They know that education is important. But they don't have the requisite skills to assist their children with their schooling. How is a child like that supposed to compete with kids whose parents are doctors or accountants or other educated professionals? Families that read together, discuss things together, take trips together, visit museums together and do a million other things that are educational, often without even planning for it to be "educational".

Also, I fear, no, I know it to be true. We are focussing so much money and energy on getting kids to pass tests, that we are neglecting many important things. Many teachers have stopped teaching history/social studies because it is not tested. In a democratic republic like ours, that is a scary thing to me. If children/teenagers are not taught how our government works and they are not taught about the lessons from history, we are in for a very frightening future in my opinion. In addition, there is little time or money for "extras" such as PE, music, dance, technology, art, etc. Kids are lucky if they get 30-40 minutes per week in each of these (and probably not in all of these.) This is sad, because we are not allowing children to explore areas where they might find success even if they aren't great in math or reading. Every child comes to this earth with gifts (we know that from research and from scripture) and we are not giving them the opportunity to find out what those gifts are. Some will argue that is the parents' job to help them discover this and at some level it is true. But there again, you are going to hurt most the kids who may need this outlet the most. It is more likely that white middle class parents are going to sign their kids up for music or dance lessons, or put them in an art class, or give them access to a computer. Passing a test does not necessarily mean that you can think creatively either. Do we want our future to have kids that can answer a multiple choice test or to have kids that can "think outside the box" and discover cures for cancer, invent new things, and do a million other creative things?

Also, way too much TIME is used on testing. Between standardized testing and other required tests, I am sure we give up at least 2 or 3 full weeks of instructional time. Wouldn't most of that time be better used actually teaching kids?

With this push for higher test scores, there is much less trust of teachers. More and more schools are buying "research based" (or so called...not always true) programs that are supposed to raise test scores. There is less and less trust that teachers know their kids and what they need to do to help their kids learn. Some programs are even touted as "teacher proof" meaning that kids will do well even if the teacher is a bad one.

A group of teachers and I were talking yesterday after school. We'd had a meeting in which we'd discussed/recorded strategies we use to help kids who are struggling. We had an amazing list, but the experience troubled many of us. With a new reading program (which has both pros and cons) and a 2 year old math program, many of us felt like many of the things on the list were all the great things we used to do. There just isn't time enough to do it all. And as we were talking, I realized something sad. I am so busy trying to "cover the core" (basic skills) and teach from the math and reading programs, that I don't enjoy my students as much anymore. I don't feel like I know them as human beings. I mean I know exactly where they are in reading and math. But I don't really know what they are good at or what they love or where their talents lie. And I don't feel as close to this class as I usually do. I think in many ways, testing is taking much of the joy and passion out of teaching. Some times my class has this glazed over look in their eyes, and I think to myself, "NO wonder... This is boring." I do try to find ways to make it engaging, but usually when I do it is when I'm deviating from what the programs say I am "supposed" to do. And yet, we know kids don't learn if they aren't engaged and paying attention. I think testing is hurting human relationships, and in many ways, I think they are more important than academic skills.

Also, when a child doesn't get breakfast, or doesn't have a bed to sleep in, or his/her mom was just put in jail, or he/she is in yet another foster care home, or his parents are splitting up, or his dad beat him, or probably another 100 bad things happened that morning before they even made it to school, they just simply don't care about a test. It doesn't have any real consequences for them. And survival is what they are working on. When that is where your mind and heart are, you aren't ready to learn or retain information. You aren't able to focus on a test or a lesson. You are in fight or flight mode. And I'm not making those situations up. I've had all of them happen in the past 2 or 3 years, probably all of them happen this year alone and I just don't know about some of it. These kids are tough and they experience some rough things. No wonder that 6 x 7 doesn't always seem that important to them!

Of course, there are problems in public education. There are some bad teachers out there (although I think they are a lot fewer than most people believe). And I am concerned that minority students and impoverished students are performing at a lower level. But I don't think high stakes testing is the answer.

The media often talks about how we compare to other nations. I don't know that I like the idea of this to begin with, because really, we don't want to be other nations. But let me just mention a few facts that are not often talked about. First, few nations have the numbers of second language learners that we have. We are a very multilingual nation. And the expectation here in Utah is that if a child walks in the door before October of a school year from anywhere, including a foreign county, then that child will take the on level standardized test and is expected to perform on grade level with his/her peers. Even though we know that it takes 5-7 years to become academically proficient in a second language. So I'm wondering how many of you could move to Japan this week and in one year from now, could pass a sixth grade level standardized test in Japanese. (And I'm being nice because really you should be taking a college level test if you are one of my readers.) I don't think I could. But that is what is expected of our children.

Another tidbit. Most Asian countries outscore us in math and science. Did you know that on average they go to school for about 40-60 more days of school than we do? (That's about an extra 1/3 of a school year). They also often have longer hours. Also, most Asian languages are more math friendly and the kids are ahead of their American peers by age four (before they have even entered school) because of these language differences. If this is interesting to you, you should read the book Outliers.

And here in America, one of the things that IS working is to lengthen the school day and the school year. Now as a parent of a middle class white child who is rather successful, I don't really want that to happen. I want my child home with me in the summer (I feel like I am already missing out on too much time!). But for children who will be going home to an empty home, for teenagers who are likely to join gangs or get pregnant or use drugs, this is a real solution and it is changing kids' lives in a positive way. Why can't some of our funding be used to extend the school day and year in high risk neighborhoods instead of throwing more tests at these kids? We know that full day kindergarten has made a world of difference. This is what I think is going to save our kids. Not another test.

Well, if anyone actually read this entire post, I am impressed. I know it was very long. But I had to get all of this off my chest so I can hopefully sleep. (At least I hope so! I get to go teach 23 children tomorrow and hope that I can make a difference in their lives.)