As a parent (my husband and I have raised 11 children--all of whom attended public school), I always had questions when the school gave us the results of any standardized tests they had taken. What do these numbers really mean? What are you saying about my child? My concerns were compounded by my knowledge as a teacher of the problems inherent in this type of testing.
Consider this recent finding shared by Stephen Lazar in a recent blog on SchoolBook:
In New York, as Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University, showed, having students answer just one more multiple-choice question correctly would lead to a 20-percentile-point jump in a teacher’s rating. That is insane!
Yet this insanity is being pushed on parents as if it were a truthful or even helpful representation of what our children know or can do. As a parent, what I REALLY wanted was an in-depth report from the classroom teachers of my children that could supplement, and in some cases correct the snapshot presented in the cryptic test reports. I never selected a teacher for my children based on the student test scores that teacher had the previous year. I did want a professional, who looked at each of my children as an individual with talents, interests, potential, goals, as well as needs.
It's time to step back from the testing frenzy and see just what we have done to our children.
Sign the National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing.
I taught for 20 years. In my opinion it's time to ditch the tests. They provide very little useful data for serving kids since results are returned the following fall. They rarely match the state standards or the required state text books. We need to be using curriculum bases measurements which provide teachers with real time data to determine if interventions are working. Right now the system is like trying to treat high blood pressure by giving the patient a colonoscopy once a year.
As for a measure of teacher merit it might be an indicator if year after year their class scores are low compared to other grade on their site but to get enough data points to tell you'd have to sacrifice alot of kids' educations.
Let's get real the tests are not what we know to be best practice for kids. They are there because they are simplistic enough for people who are not educators to understand. They are there so real estate agents can tell buyers this is a great school district. The most tragic part is that people who don't understand education use this one very flawed measure to make major decisions.
Posted by: Lydia Snider | May 01, 2012 at 09:05 AM
As a parent, this scares me. If one question can distance one teacher from another by 20%, how can I expect to use testing data to make an informed decision about which teachers or schools are high quality?
As a teacher, this infuriates me. Not only is this grossly unfair and just plain silly that there is a push to evaluate my worth based on this flawed system, but I also see a danger in how it will affect students. I can imagine teachers feeling even more pressure to teach to a test when literally every question counts towards their job security.
Not good!
Kate Mulcahy - Member of the Denver New Millennium Initiative team.
Posted by: Kate Mulcahy | May 01, 2012 at 09:33 AM