Around the nation, more and more school districts like New York City are considering making teacher performance ratings public. One of the many problems with this, simply put, is that the state tests which these tests are based on, well... they suck. Yep. I said it.
My background is in K-8 as a literacy and technology as a former literacy coach, tech coach, library media specialist, and current innovation manager who spent many days grading these sub-par assessments. Because of my background and experience, I'm going to focus on the high stakes literacy tests K-8 and explain why they suck.
Background In Reading Assessment
Students read at different levels. Each level has attributes associated with it and there are strategies that learners can take to move to the next level. Teachers assess student reading levels with something called a running record. Today with technology, these readings can even be recorded, so if necessary, the student's actual running record or reading assessment could be shared. Teachers generally assess student reading at the beginning, middle and end of the year and can easily measure the growth of a student say from a G-Level reader to a J-Level reader. This makes sense as a measurement of student learning. It also allows for students to independently take ownership of their reading level and it is very easy to get families involved in strategies to support students.
The Problem with State Reading Tests
State reading tests provide all students on a grade level with the same test. While the test is an accurate measure of the students who fit the reading level the state arbitrarily has chosen, most students are left behind either because the reading level is too advanced or too easy. In essence, the tests assess how well students are doing on something they can't read well yet... Answer: Not very well. OR...we assess them on something that is below their reading level... So we don't know growth, we only know they can read that well. In other words, we're not really assessing student reading level.
What we do know is that developmentally children become ready to read at different ages. We also know that forcing reading on children is actually a deterrent for attaining growth. Finally, we know two extremely important factors in the attainment of reading fluency is family involvement and socioeconomic class.
None of these factors are in the control of the teacher!
What I propose is we stop creating a test that makes teachers and students absolutely bonkers, and instead use the running record reading assessments that teachers already use to measure student reading level. Though, while this solves the issue of assessing reading more accurately, it doesn't take into account that the factors that accelerate reading, really have nothing to do with the teacher.
On to writing...
As shared in Four Reasons Innovative Educators Should Boycott Standardized Tests, the problem with the way writing is assessed in standardized tests, stems from the fact that they use an outdated and irrelevant method of assessment. If teachers are doing their jobs effectively, students aren't just focusing on "hand-it-in" teaching. Instead, they're focused on "publish it" learning, meaning students are communicating authentically to real audiences using the learning style that best match their strengths. Student work can ideally be kept in a portfolio that can be assessed for writing achievement.
Wouldn't you want to measure a teacher by how she helps her students publish for authentic audiences in areas of deep personal passion rather than how she helps a student write about a topic the state dictates?
The problem with the current method is this:
Not only is all of this bad enough, but these are high stakes tests for students too. Meaning, if they don't pass, they don't move on to the next grade level and are doomed to sit through the same stuff that didn't help them learn before. This puts them in a category that diminishes their chances of success in the future.
This should give just a little insight into why these "teacher assessments" are really not the right way to go. If you're convinced, you might be thinking, okay, that sounds nice, but there's nothing we can do. The state makes us take these tests.
There is a movement bubbling up called The Bartleby Project started by John Taylor Gatto. It's a call to action for students to simply write across the top of their test, "I prefer not to take your test." The premise being that students and parents should be empowered to decided how their child should best be assessed and not forced by the state to be subjected to very questionable assessments.
The project has a growing following with a Bartleby Project Facebook Page, a number of reprints of John Taylor Gatto's Bartleby Project proposal from his new book, Weapons of Mass Instruction floating around the web, and a huge round up of videos on YouTube. I've included two Xtranormal creations below.
One is a short video from a child's perspective and the other is taken from John Taylor Gatto's proposal for those who prefer watching to listening.
Follow Lisa Nielsen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Innovativeedu
Bill Tucker: Three Truths About Testing and Cheating
This is a limited study, of course, and shouldn't be taken to imply that any kind of test is the best way to reinforce any kind of learning, but I am wondering about what it tells us about writing. Intuitively I know that when I learn something (or think I learn it), and then have to describe it in writing to someone else, I both reinforce what I've learned and quickly find out what I didn't learn. The act of writing (I suppose storytelling would work as well) causes us to re-organize and link information, to synthesize, to "fit" our knowledge of something complex into the knowledge framework we already have. Assessing a student's ability to do that, not just the grammar/vocabulary/etc., but the structure and content of the product, seems important. It gets at those "critical thinking" and other higher-level skills teachers on HP talk about so much as the real aim of education.
Speaking persuasively about something you're passionate about is great. Being able to write about a subject one just heard and cares little about is also great -- and something worth assessing.
"Though, while this solves the issue of assessing reading more accurately, it doesn't take into account that the factors that accelerate reading, really have nothing to do with the teacher."
So what exactly is the teacher being paid to do? Assess progress three times a year?
In the American education industry, those in power are fixated on using tests that are easy to score (read: low-level facts that are quickly forgotten after the test) rather than measuring what is important to learn. Multiple choice tests cannot measure the higher level learning domains of reasoning and performancÂe i.e. what you can do with what you have learned.
Moreover, those in charge of the education industry fail to recognize a basic premise of learning: Knowing is not the same as understandÂing. And without understandÂing you cannot reason nor apply what you know. Example: I know what Einstein's formula for relativity is (MC squared = E). I even know what each letter stands for (M = matter, C squared = speed of light, E = energy). But fail to understand how the formula works or how to apply it within physics. Knowing is not the same as understandÂing.
Assessment should always be in the service of learning, and one of the overarchinÂg goals of any assessment program should be to get students to the point where they no longer need to be told if they have succeeded, as well as be able to identify where they went wrong.
StandardizÂed tests do not give students ownership of their own learning, and until students understand where they need to go and how to get there, we will continue with the ludicrous facade of accountabiÂlity that is part and parcel of what passes for educationaÂl reform these days
2. What is the purpose of standardized testing
3. Does standardized testing, which is a massive cost in public education, help students attain the goal of public education.
I'm not sure if most people realize that Regents exams take are 11-12 of the 180 instructional days a student has in the year. For a high school student with no regents exams, that's 11-12 days without schools, where teachers are at work, and paid to proctor and grade these exams. That means that 6-7% of the 180 scheduled days are spent on standardized tests. And that's not counting the classes teachers use to prep them for these tests.
And, are the tests working? They are making some companies very rich, but, are they helping students achieve what public education sets out for them to achieve? So many armchair educators are jumping into the fray and supporting judging teachers with these scores without even considering if these tests should play such a large role in a child's education. 2.5 weeks of a high school year x 4, so, about 10 weeks, or, 2.5 months, in which they are required to take 5 different 3 hour exams.
Why hasn't the media started to point out that Klein hopped ship and went to a company making their living of preparing students for these tests? And, he got a pension from the city, which he opposes for teachers....
Sometimes our discussions of methodology run in circles because we have failed to come to agreement on our aims. If we don't agree on what it is we are trying to accomplish, we're probably not going to agree on how we accomplish it.
First, WHAT.
Second, HOW.
As an aside, if you love education and children, mentor. If you want to stay in touch with the message of a free and public education, volunteer in a local school.
Thanks Lisa.
Education and our culture in general devalue nonverbal skills. I'm glad your nephew found a place where his abilities are appreciated, so many people like him never do.
Would you rather hire someone that will stay on task and complete the assigned work, or one who's ability to communicate depends on their passion for the material, or how comfortable they are with the audience?
Although I can understand the desire to teach to the strengths of a struggling child, the goal should be objective proficiency.
Using a knife, fork, and spoon and keeping the non-dominant hand in one's lap while eating are merely conventions in the service of our class system. Great, but teach your kids to do it so they can play or not, and it will be their choice.
Many of us make sure our kids know how to read, write, and do basic math computation before they head to school, not trusting these critical skills to others, and work hard to enrich their educations outside of school by hauling them to music lessons, the local museums, etc. But many kids don't have these advantages.
I say we invest in closing the "achievement gap" in the early school years, and work hard there. And stop worrying about over-stressing them. Kids in other countries are years ahead of ours, and they're less stressed than ours are. It's the adults who are stressed here, not the kids.
If we focus our best educational talent on those early years, more kids will have the opportunity to start the next Google. Or at least work at the next Google.
http://www.barefootsworld.net/1895finalexam.html
I can't wait to hear the excuses. Which will be your first reaction--I promise you--after you flunk. Americans are stupid, but boy do they know how to make excuses.
I believe in the aims of Bartleby; at the same time, to ask students to make that very daring move to write "we prefer not to take your tests" -- in the environment we have the hammer that is poised above their heads is -- placement in remediation, loss of student privileges for the junior / senior class....those kinds of things.
And just around the corner in the state of PA--Keystones. These poor kids.
"Education in the backbone of our democracy." TJ
We're being put in a full body cast before crashing.
This is how kids at private "prep" schools are educated. They would be expected to pass tests of similar difficulty. Imagine heading proudly to college with your public high school diploma in hand and running into classmates who could pass these tests.
I haven't read the excuses yet, but I do want to say something about a topic I think will be brought up: poverty. Kids living in Kansas in 1895 knew poverty, hunger, disease, and hard work. It's not just poverty. And it's not race, either. I know there are people out there who think Black kids just can't learn what kids of other races do. They don't say it out loud, but it's lurking there, barely under the surface. Well, if you look at history, that's not true either.
Education took a very wrong turn somewhere in the 1960s and 70s. It's one more thing we Boomers screwed up, along with the economy and the environment. That's why I'm so adamant about doing the research, figuring out what's working and what isn't, and then ruthlessly abandoning what isn't. Kids would be better off heading to the factories (if there were any left) than attending some public high schools. We really need to fix this.
Or maybe I'm just in a bad mood.
As long as teachers must spend over 50% of their time preparing for tests, then the students will have a curriculum that is half as rigorous and half as rewarding.
The only problem was that of all the students that took the AP test at the end of the year, only ONE barely passed. My spouse got a 1, the lowest possible score, as did many other students in the class.
So, the question becomes whether the teacher did their students any favors by ignoring the test curriculum? I would say no. How many people take European History lifetime learning classes as adults? These kids had a goal to pass the AP test at the end of the year, but their dynamic teacher didn't prepare them for it and almost all fai1ed.
Also, the fourth paragraph doesn't quite make sense. She argues that state tests are geared toward a narrow band of student reading ability, disregarding those who are ahead of or behind that level. Fine. But then she says, "In essence, the tests assess how well students are doing on something they can't read well yet". No, that's true only of the kids who are behind. The kids who are at the required level or above it will do fine. The test will do exactly what it's intended to do.
Finally, she advocates "empowering" parents to decide how their kids are assessed. That's already possible through the ballot box. If individual parents don't like the popularly-decided assessment methods, they should remove their kids from the system and educate them themselves. Otherwise, they're charging schools with the responsibility to educate their kids, but taking away the authority to do it.
But somehow you and your colleagues are above such accountability. Are you saying that there's no such thing as slackers in your profession? Every other profession has a means for rooting them out.
Regarding your second point about the narrow band being tested, the reason it does not assess students above the reading level is they've mastered the material already. There is nowhere to go once you've received a 4.
As far as your final point, yes, there are some families that can arrange for this option, but the reality, at least in cities like mine, is that often both parents need to work full time and/or both parents might not be present and/or they might not even have parents or homes. We need a public education that services all children effectively.
Also, what do you mean by "authentically published"? I know what "published" means, of course [to make publicly known, to release for distribution, ...] and I know what authentic means [worthy of belief, conforming to fact, ...], but you seem to be using them in some non-standard way. Could you explain?
This is not a well-constructed sentence.
Placement tests? There's lots of tests in school. The education system has to know where the kids are at. That's why they get paid. But, all kids don't learn at the same rate. Some kid graduated high school and went on to college at something like age 14. Other kids fail grades and don't leave the high school system until they're 20, that is if the school system still even keeps em around that long. But, how do you help the slow kids and not hold back the fast kids? I'd say make it so that if your kid's a wizard, quick on the pick-up, then help the school system to improve their promotion system.
Computers can help in many aspects of learning and instruction, reading is only one.