Standardized Testing: a Primer

March Madness!!!!

I never realized how zany a month March is.  I mean, take a look:

~Will March arrive like a lamb or a lion?

Wait.  No one really cares that much about that anymore, do they?

~NCAA basketball, the ultimate in cager mania.  Go Skyhawks!!! (Fort Lewis College, NCAA II tourney, in case you b-ball enthusiasts were curious.)

Wait.  They lost.  Darn.  Well, there’s always next year…

~The beginning of daylight savings time!  More sunlight after dinner!

Wait.  Actually, who likes “spring ahead?” I was so tired I accidentally made decaf the morning after.  Not. Good.

Anyway, what seems to be really ca-razy about March, and parents, I’m sure many of you will agree, is this:

Standardized testing in our kids’ schools.

True March Madness.

Bummed about bubble sheets? Don’t blame you…

This past week my daughter began the federally-mandated testing in math and reading.  Two days after we lost an hour of sleep by “springing ahead,” she and her fellow third graders, rookies to the standardized-testing scene, got to share their knowledge with the world (remember, these results are made public), influenced by a punch-drunk, circadian-stupor.

Call me mad, but this should have been better planned.

I don’t know one parent or teacher who likes the disruption of standardized testing.  Or the  conundrum of administering practice tests, further lessening the time spent providing our kids with a good education.  Really?  Let’s evaluate schools on their ability to educate, but keep them from doing it.  Seems pretty unfair to both our educators and our kids.  But at least the testing days are made known, so I can give my kids the (what has become sadly routine) pep talk:

1)  Just show ’em what you know.  Don’t sweat it.

2)  No, PARCC testing (our version of the standardized test) will not affect your grades in school.

3)  No, you will not be held back if you don’t do well on the PARCC.

I mean, my kids hear some pretty crazy (mad) stuff about standardized testing.  Granted, they are kids and what they hear is not necessarily what is said.  But when I have to reassure my children that their third and fifth grade years are not riding on these tests, I do worry.  Especially when the dialogue about PARCC testing starts several weeks before they actually sit down to take the tests.

Let’s face it:  standardized testing has become (but probably always was) a racket.  The tests are a great moneymaker for those who sell them, and it’s no secret that many are of questionable quality and value, not necessarily testing what they are intended to test.  Teachers can find themselves “teaching to the test,” spending less time teaching what they know their charges need for a solid education, spending lots of time reworking their curricula around the time-suck of standardized testing schedules, and even administering assessments themselves.

According to study results published in a washingtonpost.com article (Layton, Lindsey, “Study says standardized testing is overwhelming nation’s public schools,” October 24, 2015), kids take an average of 112 assessment tests between preschool and their senior year in high school.  8th graders bear the brunt of testing time, averaging just over 25 hours of standardized testing.  (Here I thought the 2.25 school days my 5th graders spend testing was insane.)  Furthermore, students in other countries perform better overall than U.S.-educated students in international testing forums; and depending on where they are from, they may be subject to assessment tests only three times throughout their school careers.  It seems the tighter the grip of standardized testing, the more the quality of our educational system slips through our fingers.  (Thank you, Princess Leia, for lending your metaphor to this last sentence.)

Since the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act was passed into law in 2002, our nation’s schools have seen a leap in the number of standardized tests administered.  NCLB reformed a previous education bill from the era of President Lyndon Johnson and increased the role of the federal government in guaranteeing (yes, guaranteeing) quality education for our nation’s kids.  In a nutshell, this is NCLB:

1. Individual states are given the role of setting rigorous academic standards in math and reading.  The goal?  100 % proficiency of all students in those subjects by 12th grade.
2. States are also given federal funds to design their own standardized tests, tests to be administered yearly and intended to evaluate students’ progress in math and reading.
3. Kids in grades 3 through 8 are tested yearly in both math and reading and then once in high school.
4. A school gets a report card, which is publicly available, showing how well the students did on their respective assessments.  Iin other words, this report card is supposed to indicate how well the teachers do at teaching.)
5. …Every other year a sample of each state’s 4th through 8th graders is subject to further testing, called the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).   The results of this exam are compared to the tests administered by the individual states and used to determine whether the states have rigorous enough tests.  So the NAEP assessment is an assessment of the original assessments.

This rigamarole is all in the name of holding school districts responsible for quality of our kids’ education. Sounds great on paper, right? But if our schools are spending hours each year on poorly-written tests, how are they supposed to provide a quality education? Or know from these questionably-written tests if kids are learning in the first place? I know, I’m not saying anything profound here, but things get even worse. And I didn’t know it and perhaps you didn’t, either.
Last year, when my (4th grade) twins completed PARCC testing, we breathed a sigh of relief.  Back to the drawing board…literally.  Then, shortly after, we get a notice from school that the kids were up not only for that NAEP spot-check, but also for special tests that included, but were not limited to, social studies.  What?

Oh, yes.  These extra tests are not federally mandated; they may include additional subjects like social studies and science and even physical education.  I had no clue.  But these tests (also of lucrative but questionable value) are special state tests administered to help school districts win monetary grants or earn waivers to the NCBL requirements…if kids in those districts perform well enough.  AND states/school districts may add further assessments in math and reading to check whether their students are on that 100% proficiency track.  Why?  Because looming over school districts is the threat of “restructuring” or “corrective actions” if not up to their previously-set academic standards.  In other words, if a school falls, um, behind with No Child Left Behind, it’s a poor grade on the school’s report card.  With consequences.

So our kids take math and reading assessments, more math and reading assessments, and then social studies and science and P.E. assessments.  That’s a lot of time spend in school without being in the classroom.  So will someone please pay our kids for filling piles of virtual bubble sheets?

Even the federal government thinks this testing mess is spinning out of control.  I know, right?  But as parents protest by opting their kids out of testing, and the fact that test results in 4 out of 10 districts aren’t even available until the next school year (like ours), and therefore pretty useless,  governmental attention must be paid.  In fact, last December President Obama signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act, a bill guaranteeing (there’s that word again…) to revamp No Child Left Behind.  It’s pretty general and it:

1. Hands the individual states and their school districts more responsibility for school performance and accountability; lessens Washington’s role in these responsibilities.
2. Eliminates “unnecessary” standardized testing.
3. Improves family access to good preschools.
4. Strives to improve the rate of high school graduation.

Independently of the new bill, The Department of Education has vowed to:

1. Help states clean up standardized testing.
2. Decrease the number of tests that don’t truly measure academic progress.
3. Find more valuable ways to evaluate teacher performance other than standardized tests.
4. Get rid of the extra tests that aren’t federally mandated.

Hopefully new Education Secretary John B. King, Jr., will find creative ways to implement Every Student Succeeds and and the rhetoric of his department.

I wonder what he would think of a standardized assessment evaluating his performance?  I, for one, don’t think that’s at all mad.