Growing
up, I always took standardized tests. Every year, our teachers would say, “Get
a good night’s sleep and eat breakfast in the morning. You have a test
tomorrow.” And that was it.
I
happened to start my career in education right around the time when this
approach to standardized testing completely shifted under the pressure of the
No Child Left Behind Act.
As
an educator for the past 16 years, I've seen a lot of bad things. When I taught
in a Title I school in rural Louisiana where more than 90% of children lived
below the federal poverty line, the principal kept a paddle on her wall and
would use it to beat children. Corporal punishment was the school's main way of
disciplining and guiding children, and there was no time for more proactive strategies
like community and relationship building because we were supposed to be
marching through the standards at a break-neck pace.
Working
in schools in Houston, I saw classrooms with no books; the teachers had removed
them and decided to teach reading through the use of test prep passages
instead. The administration canceled science and social studies classes to do
double blocks of reading and writing, since those were the only tested subjects
in third grade.
I've
taught in districts that mandated benchmark testing every two weeks in four
subject areas, which meant I had too little time for teaching.
There
is no doubt that No Child Left Behind has cast an ugly and dark shadow over our
schools, our teachers, and our children.
And
yet still I support the use of standardized testing.
Why
is that?
The achievement gap is real.
No
Child Left Behind mandated that every state test its children and that we break
down the results by racial and socio-economic demographics. This data is
incredibly helpful to us as a nation. It forces us to acknowledge that your zip
code really does determine your destiny in this country.
In
Austin, the city I live in, there is a very clear correlation: If you live in
the more expensive parts of town, you are more likely to be white and you are
more likely to have higher results on the state test. Without a standardized
test, this gap would be much more difficult to see, quantify, and address.
The
achievement gap is one of the most important civil rights issues of our time.
We will never achieve the American promise of "liberty and justice for
all" if we cannot ensure that all children develop basic mathematics and
literacy skills.
Standardized
tests help us see the achievement gap in an objective, quantifiable way. They
help us see which children are reading below grade level and are not acquiring
the foundational math skills needed to move into more complicated math. Closing
the proficiency gap is not enough to close the much larger gap, but it is
start. If we "opt out" of standardized testing, we opt out of getting
the kind of objective data we need to hold ourselves accountable for ensuring
success for all children.
The tests measure basic proficiency.
Of
course any test will likely have one or two questions that seem silly and
irrelevant or are culturally or geographically biased, but, in general, the
third grade and sixth grade reading and math tests that I have worked to
prepare children for over the course of the past 16 years are all things that
they should be able to do. And they are all things that I would want my own
children to be able to do.
I
absolutely agree that these tests measure only a small sliver of what is
necessary for success in college, the 21st century work place, and life as
leaders in our families and communities, but it's a start. It's a
non-negotiable. You aren't going to reach your fullest potential out in the
world if you can't read a piece of text and understand what it means.
I
care more about things like critical thinking, problem-solving, social and
emotional intelligence, executive functioning, time management, integrity, and
empathy, but I also want my students to be on par with their wealthier peers
academically. Standardized tests help me keep my eye on that bar.
You do not have to resort to "drill and kill" to get
good results on the state assessment.
The
major problem with NCLB is not the tests themselves; it's the way districts
have chosen to respond to the pressure of increasing student performance on the
test.
As
an educator, I have intentionally resisted the pressure and worked to buffer my
students from it.
One
year I worked at a school that started with 6th graders, the vast majority of
whom lived below the federal poverty line. The school assigned me all of the
most struggling readers. They put them into a single class. I had children who
came in reading at a 1st grade level. Did I choose to resort to "drill and
kill" to try and get them to pass the test nine months later? Absolutely
not. Because that's not how children learn to read in the most efficient and
effective way possible. Further, “drill and kill” does not create lifelong
readers.
What
did I do instead? I worked to teach them to fall in love with reading. I would
give them a very brief strategy lesson, read to them, and then let them spend
the bulk of their time reading books of their own choice (even comic books). I
would then conference with each child to assess what strategies they were
already using well and what I should teach them next.
When
children fall in love with reading, they start reading all the time. They read
while they wait in line, they read in the car or on the bus on the way home
from school, they read under their covers at night when they are supposed to be
sleeping. And the more they read, the higher their reading levels climb.
By
the end of the year, every one of those 6th graders passed the state reading
assessment. Nearly all of them came from homes impacted by poverty and
were almost all children of color.
Other
years I worked in a public Montessori program where students self-direct their
learning. For example, I had a 7 and 8 year-old decide they wanted to study the
Bermuda Triangle and share their knowledge with others by making a coloring
book. In the middle of the process, they decided that they wanted to sell the
coloring book in order to raise money for new classroom materials. They
developed their project planning skills, emotional intelligence,
persuasiveness, entrepreneurial abilities, and public speaking capacity through
this project—all skills they will need for success in college and the 21st
century workplace.
And
both of those children passed the standardized reading and math tests by the
end of 3rd grade. In fact, 100% of the children in my classroom
passed both state assessments, regardless of their race, their parents’ income,
or the kind of trauma that was present in their home lives.
We can provide a high-quality educational experience and ensure that children do well on
standardized tests.
I
was a classroom teacher for nine years and have worked hard to provide an
enriching educational experience and ensure that my children pass the state
test. My students have written and directed their own plays, read books they
love, cooked food in class, planned their own field trips, run their own
businesses, discussed issues in daily community meetings and problem-solving
circles, constructed their own knowledge through the use of hands-on materials
AND they have done well on standardized tests. It’s absolutely possible to do
both.
First,
you have to have a clear sense of what the outcomes are. What do we want
children to master by the end of the year? It's not enough to read the
standards; you have to really unpack them by analyzing various ways in which
the standard will be tested and how children will have to transfer their
learning.
Second,
you have to have a clear sense—at all times—of where every single child is in
relation to the end goal. This task is difficult in classrooms of 20 or 30
children or in middle schools when you have multiple classes (I've taught both)
but it's not impossible. It takes an incredible tracking system and the
commitment to maintain it.
Third,
you have to let every child work at their own level. It's worth repeating: In
order to help children maximize their growth, CHILDREN MUST WORK AT THEIR OWN
LEVEL. If children are working on material that is too easy for them, you are
holding them back from growing as much as they can and they will likely grow
very bored. If children are working on material that is too hard for them, they
will become frustrated and disengaged. If children work at their level, they
will master concepts more quickly and make faster progress. The gaps will
start to close.
And
herein lies the problem. Our education system is modeled after factories with
everyone doing the same thing at the same time in the same way. This model is
flawed. It does not allow children to close their academic gaps efficiently or
effectively.
Fourth,
teachers need time and support to come together and analyze how it's going.
They need to dissect what children are and are not mastering and retaining, and
they need to generate next steps. I have never worked in a school that does
this well.
Real
reform is needed. We need to design schools that give children the opportunity
to work at their individual levels and work on something until it is mastered
(while keeping their innate curiosity and love of learning alive) and schools
that support teachers to implement the continuous improvement cycle of
assessing, analyzing, and acting so that they can strategically and systematically
support children to close the achievement gap.
But
opting out of the test isn't necessary in order to drive this kind of reform.
In fact, we need the test to continue to provide objective data about how all
of our children are doing—regardless of their race or class. Standardized tests
help illuminate the achievement gap and push us to hold ourselves accountable
for closing it.
Individual
teachers, principals, and parents have more power than they realize to opt out
of "drill and kill." The test itself is not the problem, teaching to the test is.
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