I wish to be clear: I'm not one to panic and shoot down changing educational policies just because they're new. I do find it highly problematic that every 4-8 years, a new Executive desire to look effective in addressing "Education" brings more and more requirements into the schedules of already overtaxed teachers, but I'm not opposed to fine-tuning or even overhauling assessment practices when it's warranted.
But the overhaul that has come in the wake of Common Core State Standards and its Smarter Balanced Assessment is not warranted.
Let's leave aside, for a moment, the clear and overwhelming evidence that private interests like the Pearson Group and Houghton-Mifflin have long been influencing educational policy to create more opportunities for curriculum- and test-producing corporations to profit from public funds. This "Education-Industrial Complex," not unlike the Military-Industrial Complex, is a slow-growing cancer that allows privateers to gain contracts through board-room handshakes and then generate the very conditions that produce magnificent profits for themselves. But, monumental as that issue is in its own right, let's leave it aside for now.
Instead, let's look at the ideology of the high-stakes standardized testing phenomenon.
I sat in a meeting last night at my daughter's high school in which district representatives, including two School Board members and several school administrators, made a fine effort at justifying the institution of this new test, the Smarter Balanced Assessment. This test is better than the old test. This test only increases the time spent out of meaningful class time to 3 1/2 hours from the two hours of the old test. This test includes a sensitivity to cultural bias that the old test lacked, and will provide better accommodations for English-language Learners and students with Special Needs. This test will be the first to actually measure critical thinking, and will demand more rigor, and over time, will improve our children's over all college-readiness. I have many reasons to doubt all of these claims, and I'll speak to a few of them in a moment.
The key moment for me, though, came when we, as parents, were urged to help the schools achieve the necessary participation rate of 94.5% without which the school, regardless of the actual test scores, will get docked a full point out of its 5-point score. This, of course, is a result of George W.'s 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, which specifically tied schools' overall test performance and graduation rates, measured in an annual report card score called AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress). Here in Oregon, the State measures this on a 1-5 scale where one is "not meeting standards" and 5 is "exceeding standards." In other States they measure this on an A-F scale.
What this means, effectively, is that if a school does not show sufficient progress, as measured largely by test scores, the State can fire the school's entire staff, or shut the school down entirely. So, for a school to lose a full point because less than 94.5% of its students did not take the standardized test at all is a big deal. Presumably, this stipulation is motivated by the desire to get an accurate measure of all of our students' performance, across ethnic and economic lines. In fact, that's exactly what our district administrator argued at last night's meeting. I believe that he believes that. He's a good guy, and a friend of mine. And like other administrators across the country, I trust that they genuinely have the best interests of our kids as their first priority.
But I have to ask the question: What other assessment instrument-- anywhere-- requires a 95% participation rate to claim it has an accurate sample? It seems to me far more likely that this outrageous requirement is really designed to punish schools for not aggressively enough towing the party line, and by extension, to cause schools to pressure parents not to opt-out.
And here's another question: how many people who can accurately call themselves experts in education truly believe that high-stakes standardized tests are an accurate measure of student learning? I haven't been able to find too many who do. In fact Portland Public School District's school board voted unanimously to place a two-year moratorium on the new test, until the test itself has been tested for efficacy. One thing that is clear is the evidence that high-stakes standardized tests increases student stress and decreases their love of learning.
Here are some of things standardized tests, including the new and improved Smarter Balanced Assessment, do NOT do:
But the overhaul that has come in the wake of Common Core State Standards and its Smarter Balanced Assessment is not warranted.
Let's leave aside, for a moment, the clear and overwhelming evidence that private interests like the Pearson Group and Houghton-Mifflin have long been influencing educational policy to create more opportunities for curriculum- and test-producing corporations to profit from public funds. This "Education-Industrial Complex," not unlike the Military-Industrial Complex, is a slow-growing cancer that allows privateers to gain contracts through board-room handshakes and then generate the very conditions that produce magnificent profits for themselves. But, monumental as that issue is in its own right, let's leave it aside for now.
Instead, let's look at the ideology of the high-stakes standardized testing phenomenon.
I sat in a meeting last night at my daughter's high school in which district representatives, including two School Board members and several school administrators, made a fine effort at justifying the institution of this new test, the Smarter Balanced Assessment. This test is better than the old test. This test only increases the time spent out of meaningful class time to 3 1/2 hours from the two hours of the old test. This test includes a sensitivity to cultural bias that the old test lacked, and will provide better accommodations for English-language Learners and students with Special Needs. This test will be the first to actually measure critical thinking, and will demand more rigor, and over time, will improve our children's over all college-readiness. I have many reasons to doubt all of these claims, and I'll speak to a few of them in a moment.
The key moment for me, though, came when we, as parents, were urged to help the schools achieve the necessary participation rate of 94.5% without which the school, regardless of the actual test scores, will get docked a full point out of its 5-point score. This, of course, is a result of George W.'s 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, which specifically tied schools' overall test performance and graduation rates, measured in an annual report card score called AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress). Here in Oregon, the State measures this on a 1-5 scale where one is "not meeting standards" and 5 is "exceeding standards." In other States they measure this on an A-F scale.
What this means, effectively, is that if a school does not show sufficient progress, as measured largely by test scores, the State can fire the school's entire staff, or shut the school down entirely. So, for a school to lose a full point because less than 94.5% of its students did not take the standardized test at all is a big deal. Presumably, this stipulation is motivated by the desire to get an accurate measure of all of our students' performance, across ethnic and economic lines. In fact, that's exactly what our district administrator argued at last night's meeting. I believe that he believes that. He's a good guy, and a friend of mine. And like other administrators across the country, I trust that they genuinely have the best interests of our kids as their first priority.
But I have to ask the question: What other assessment instrument-- anywhere-- requires a 95% participation rate to claim it has an accurate sample? It seems to me far more likely that this outrageous requirement is really designed to punish schools for not aggressively enough towing the party line, and by extension, to cause schools to pressure parents not to opt-out.
And here's another question: how many people who can accurately call themselves experts in education truly believe that high-stakes standardized tests are an accurate measure of student learning? I haven't been able to find too many who do. In fact Portland Public School District's school board voted unanimously to place a two-year moratorium on the new test, until the test itself has been tested for efficacy. One thing that is clear is the evidence that high-stakes standardized tests increases student stress and decreases their love of learning.
Here are some of things standardized tests, including the new and improved Smarter Balanced Assessment, do NOT do:
- They don't measure engagement. One of the greatest experiences in a teacher's career is to catch student's interest, to see her eyes light up with new ideas and passions in a new issue or subject, to see a formerly listless student start to pay attention, start to ask questions, start to show up.
- They don't measure growth. I worked for ten years at an alternative school attended mainly by students who arrived substantially behind in credits, who in fact would never have been able to graduate had they remained in a mainstream school. Because of our alternative curriculum and stricter attendance policies, we saw students build skills, attend classes more often and with more awareness, and finish their high school diplomas.
- They don't encourage a wide enough sample of curriculum. During these last 20 years of standardized test-madness, we've seen a clear decrease in the arts, music, and foreign language. Higher stakes for students and schools mean more time out of class to prepare for tests and a narrowing of valuable curricula that engages the whole child.
Finally, perhaps my deepest concern about this perpetuation of high-stakes testing has to do with the fundamental ideology of education that it presumes. The key assumption underlying the emphasis on standardized tests is that a good education requires students to acquire constellation of facts and information or even, at best, the ability to perform certain skills under pressure. To me, education is about far more than the ability to perform certain tasks or regurgitate facts. It is about awakening to a larger world; it is about learning how to participate as global citizens in a creative and critical and compassionate way; it is about questioning and discovering inspiration and how to follow that inspiration into action; it is about learning how to keep learning for themselves so that the world itself becomes your classroom. Some of these qualities are possible to measure on a test, but some of them aren't.
All of them require teachers who know their students, who have a relationship with them and watch them grow.
And while I am encouraged to see the Common Core place a much greater emphasis on critical thinking skills than any test before it, and while I acknowledge the need to establish measures to insure schools are doing their very best to support kids, I continue to be deeply concerned about the prevailing climate that quantifies learning and punishes those who question it. I am outraged by the distrust of teachers that predicates the so-called "Education Reform" movement which I believe is motivated by corporate interests' desire to privatize education.
High-stakes standardized tests--even new and improved ones-- are neither smart, nor balanced.
