This article in The Midweek News (DeKalb, IL) is an amalgamation of just about every bad testing-related education idea that exists, along with just about every bad testing-related journalistic approach possible. I'll list a few for your amusement; see if you can find more!
What a couple of decades ago was considered “teaching to the test” is now called “aligning the curriculum with state standards.”
Well, at least this bit of sophistry reveals the truth behind those educators who oppose "teaching to the test," which is that they don't want the material they teach to have to conform to any objective standards.
The carrot is continued federal funding. The stick is an escalating series of sanctions, including a cut-off of funds and possibly a closure or the imposition of private management on the school. According to critics, the only thing that counts is the number of students who score above the basic level.
Can those critics provide a reason why federal or state governments should not be concerned with the relatively large percentages of students who score at or below basic levels on many standardized exams? These critics seem to have confused "valuing all students" with "being complacent with 1/5th of all students performing below the most basic levels of core skills."
Sycamore School Superintendent Robert Hammon frequently comments to his Board of Education on the difficulties with NCLB, and he noted, for the first thing, the law is 1,000 pages long “and that doesn’t include the rules.”
He explained, “The original intent was admirable, but (the actual effect) is in the details and it obviously has created a whole new level of bureaucracy. Also, it certainly has removed control from local educators (and taken it) to the national level.
Would this have been necessary if the sentiment in Washington was that local educators were doing their jobs right? Obviously some of them were, but large numbers of them weren't.
“If we’re going to play the game and be judged by it, we will have to focus on nothing more than the tests,” he said. “The question will then become, ‘How is what I’m about to do going to improve the test scores?’” Hammon said.
Funny, many schools that have revolutionized their communities with "unteachable" kids rely a great deal on testing. And they ask themselves this very same question; unlike Hammon, they haven't already decided that all possible means of genuine education are unrelated to test scores.
Underscoring his point, the journal of the National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy headlined, “The higher the stakes, the more teaching to the test.”
In other words, he's noticed the stunningly-obvious (to anyone else) concept that when schools claim skills A, B, and C are important, then teachers will focus on teaching A, B, and C. Those skills can be as meaningful and broadly-defined as possible, but if schools do not have to teach them, some schools will not teach them.
NAEP scores make this rather obvious. Take a look at recent Reading score reports, for example. Reading is the fundamental task that should be imparted within any type of educational system in the US, and yet look at the whopping percentages of fourth-graders who are already performing Below Basic in Reading. Sixty-nine percent of DC's fourth-graders are at this lowest level on NAEP.
If those sixty-nine percent were to spend one year with a teacher who was obsessed with nothing but "teaching to" a reading test, they'd be better off than they are now.
Hammon said other educational goals such as music and the fine arts, teaching students to be critical thinkers and to be good, solid citizens involved in community service will fall by the wayside.
These educational goals will never fall by the wayside. What's more, ensuring that all children have basic skills in reading, writing, and math will help ensure that these kids can make better use of their "critical thinking" skills. If they can't read, then what the heck are they "thinking critically" about now?
[One educator] posed a hypothetical situation. “You are helping a bilingual, special education student from a low-income family to raise his or her score, which is currently 50. The passing score is 200, and the child’s score increases from 50 to 199. A score of 199 is a failure.”
But that student is much better off than they were when they were at 50. And would they have tried hard enough to reach 199 if the goal of 200 was not there?
So, what journalists cliches are in evidence? Quotes from testing critics, but none from testing supporters, developers, or psychometricians. Brief mention of the heavy support that NCLB receives from its penultimate consumers - parents - without any discussion of why educators are so in opposition to something that parents favor. Unsupported claims of how "learning" can't be represented by tests are presented as though they are uncontested facts. Horror stories about how gifted student funding is shrinking while barely literate kids get more time and attention, but no discussion of why there are so many barely literate kids in schools these days. And so on.
My favorite graf?
Assessment specialist Fames Popham predicted, “We will witness a growing clamor from citizens who just don’t believe their local schools are rotten....As soon as more than half the schools nationwide are labeled ineffective, then the requirements will be modified.” He recommended a public information campaign to educate citizens as to the problems with NCLB.
Got news for you, Popham, the numbers of parents who DO think schools are rotten is growing much faster than those who are complacent about it. Hence the rise in charter schools and homeschooling. What's more, parents are too smart to believe that most anti-testing educators are basing their opposition on anything other than a desire to save their own hides.
That much said, there are problems with NCLB, testing is not the same thing as education reform, and having to meet 100% of the goals is unrealistic. I've never denied that. But what the educational community doesn't seem to understand is that desperate measures tend to follow desperate times, and many, many parents of schoolchildren have, over the last 20 years, considered the state of public education to be about as desperate as it can get. Any educator who doesn't acknowledge this is not going to be taken seriously when bashing the NCLB Act.
Don't like the NCLB? Come up with something parents like better, or get the heck out of the way.
Posted by kswygert at January 15, 2004 01:23 PM