We are not just nearing the end of the school year, but the
end of the testing season. From
March to June, schools are deluged by tests, after spending much of September
through February prepping for the tests.
As politicians and pundits perpetuate the myth that confuses
standardized testing with learning, students’ education suffers, and teachers
are blamed. Schools spend less and
less time working on what would improve the educational experience of all of
its students; instead spending more time and resources trying to survive wave
after wave of new tests.
I teach at South High School in Minneapolis. It is a school that highlights the
ridiculous realities of our obsession with testing, although I’m sure most
every other school could tell a similar story.
According to the latest US News and World Report High School
Ranking, South High ranked the 24th best high school in the state of
Minnesota, out of 786, and in the top 5% of high schools nationally. At the same time, No Child Left Behind
rules label South as a “Stage 4 AYP” school. This requires the school to take “corrective action” and
prepare for “restructuring.” While
neither the US News ranking or the NCLB labeling actually tell us about the
real quality of education at a school, they are both based on the same testing
data. The disparate results
exemplify the failed nature of standardized tests.
Despite the mixed messages, our District is requiring
students in all schools to take a new series of standardized tests this year
called the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP). This is apparently being done to improve our scores on the
state mandated MCA tests, and includes 9th graders in the high
schools.
The MAP test has two parts - math and reading, and they are
taken once in the fall and again in the spring. At South, ninth graders took the fall portion during their
English classes, and are taking the spring portion now during their social
studies classes. This means
students in my five World History classes need to spend two class periods
taking the two parts of this test.
While two days of missed class time might not seem like too much, the
set up requirements of the computerized test, along with the limited computer
lab space results in the testing of my students being scattered over six days
rather than just two.
The tests cost the district about $12 per student, which
amounts to at least $400,000 annually, and this is only one of the many
standardized tests given in Minneapolis Public Schools. The District has also recently negotiated
a contract with teachers that will add four additional student days next
year. They are paying millions of
dollars for these four additional days.
The merit of these additional days is itself questionable, but why claim
students need more days in school only to use up more of that time taking
standardized tests?
Every few days a new story comes out about the dysfunction
of standardized tests themselves, and the dysfunction they create in our school
environment. Recent example
include, the “Pineapple” story in New York, the FCAT writing scores in Florida,
and numerous cheating scandals across the country. Yet these are just the superficial problems with
standardized tests. Todd Farley
worked for 15 years at Pearson Education, one of the largest for profit
companies in education and testing, and he said, “there aren’t scoring problems
on some standardized tests—my experience suggests there are scoring problems on
all of them.”
Beyond the scoring problems, the manner in which the
questionable test results are used compound the problems. They have narrowed the curriculum and
reduced the opportunities for students to engage in creative play and critical
thinking. They have been used to
punish teachers and schools, and forced educators to teach to the test rather
than meet the individual needs of the children. An incredible amount of time and money is dedicated to
testing rather than actual learning.
If we really want to improve the educational experience for
all students, we would not add more time in school and require more
testing. We would try to
eliminate standardized testing and focus on empowering
teachers to make time in school a rich meaningful experience for students. If politicians and administrators
cannot or will not end the testing obsession, parents, students, and teachers
must work together to force an end this destructive process. It pains me too much to watch my
students sit in front of a computer answering questions they don’t care about
and are not making them better students or better people.
