Gwinnett County (GA) teacher James Hope is NOT happy with the state of testing in Georgia right now:
Here's the question: What change should be made to the phrase "stir it around" in the sentence below?
Put the rubber banded shirt in the dye and stir it around with an old stick.
a. stir it round and round
b. stir it about
c. stir it
d. stir it all over
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Confused? Think how a 9-year-old child would feel.
This is a practice sample question from the state's new Criterion-Referenced Competencies Test for fourth-graders. This year, third-graders must pass the reading portion to be promoted. In the next two years, fifth- and eighth-graders will have to pass the reading portion or risk failing their grades. Such is the brainstorm of Georgia's A Plus Education Reform Act enacted a few years ago by then-Gov. Roy Barnes and the state Legislature...
To make matters worse, Gwinnett County, the state's largest school system, has stubbornly decided to hang on to its inept Gateway test so students get a double whammy. For instance, seventh-grade students in Gwinnett must not only take the five tests listed above, they must also take and pass standardized Gateway tests in language arts, math, social studies and science.
That's nine redundant tests in one month.
Hope then goes on to mention that he got in trouble for posting Gateway test items online before. I thought I recognized his name.
I would love to give you a specific example of a Gwinnett Gateway test question, but the last time I made some of those questions public, in an attempt to show how some test items do not measure what is taught in schools, I was visited three times by school system police, had my phone records confiscated and almost had my teaching certificate revoked.
Almost - as I reported previously, Hope was cleared of wrongdoing. I don't blame him for questioning items of the type above, and I agree that Gateway's confidentiality agreement is pretty harsh (for most tests, only live items are covered under such agreements; Hope posted sample items). And I agree with him completely on this:
These tests were supposed to be the yardstick to measure educational reform, not be the educational reform. And that's true, no matter how you "stir it" or "stir it round and round."
Posted by kswygert at April 16, 2004 10:03 AM