An op-ed in the Seattle Times says schools shouldn't be judged on test scores alone:
From the inside, Seattle's Orca elementary feels like an educational dream.
The school has energized parents, a passionate staff and a racially and economically mixed student body. It's popular, with waiting lists to get into kindergarten and first, second and third grades.
And the classrooms are creative and alive...
From the outside, though, something looks wrong at the South End alternative school. According to the state's bellwether standardized test, Orca is one of the worst schools in the Puget Sound region. Last year, only two of 37 Orca fourth-graders passed all three sections of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). The school was last among Seattle's 70 elementary schools in writing and near the bottom in reading and math.
Predictably, the author then goes on to say it's "insane" to judge Orca by WASL scores. But is it really? The school may be popular, especially with parents who consider racial and economic diversity a selling point for a school. But if the teachers are doing such a great job, why are the kids not doing well on basic-skills tests?
It is troubling that Orca kids do so poorly on the tests. As Principal Ben Ostrom says, it raises the question of whether all students get enough "rigorous academic challenges."
But standardized tests don't work equally everywhere. One example: When Orca kids take in-class tests, sometimes they can choose to take them verbally instead of in writing. You can't do that with the WASL.
Well, no, you can't, because writing is one of the skills measured on the WASL. Why should we assume that a student who chooses to take tests orally (as one of my readers points out, the word "verbally" is incorrect here for making a distinction between written and spoken responses) is in fact learning what they need to know when it comes to writing? Why should we assume that it's perfectly okay for students to be tested in whatever manner they choose? If they learn better that way, fine, but they might be handicapped later on if they haven't learned to write well. And that's why Washington State tests that particular skills. And it explains why Orca is dead last in that area.
I'm sure the WASL isn't perfect. But to judge from the sample test items, it also isn't anything that should be throwing eager and educated young minds for a loop. If Orca's fourth-graders can't read an article about grey whales and write down two details from the article, there's a problem, and the blanket statement "standardized tests don't work equally everywhere" just doesn't cut it.
And neither does a bad attitude:
Last year, five fourth-graders boycotted [the WASL]. As 19-year Orca teacher Liz Neuman said:
"I could give a rip about the WASL. We can teach to this test, but then how much of what makes this school great will be left when we're done?"
Something tells me Ms. Neuman's insistence that learning to read stories, and write details about them, has nothing to do with a great education is part of the problem.
Posted by kswygert at September 22, 2004 03:17 PM