This compare-and-contrast discussion of two Indiana schools highlights one of the most obvious disparities in testing attitudes (I'm quoting paragraphs here out of order to make my point):
Indian Creek and Crestview -- the best and worst performing schools in Lawrence Township on the statewide exam -- highlight the difficulties faced by teachers and administrators, said Jan Combs, the district's director of primary education. "The schools with high test scores tend to have a limited amount of diversity," she said.The standardized test scores are one of many indicators that show students in poverty need more help learning, she said. Test scores, particularly for ISTEP-Plus, have taken on a life of their own, she said...
At Indian Creek, Dennie Brooks tries to ignore standardized tests. "ISTEP is not the major event of our school year," he said. Teachers teach the curriculum, which includes all of the standards tested on the state test, Brooks said. But the school spends little time preparing students for ISTEP-Plus and instead focuses on good teaching, he said.
Many anti-testing advocates take statements like those of Brooks and try to generalize to the population at large, but I don't think you can generalize these statements. A school that's doing great - and doesn't have many special-needs students or high turnover - can afford to be cavalier about testing; in fact, the high test scores result in part from good teaching of the curriculum. Low-performing schools live and die by the test scores, and often focus explicitly on teaching to the test. Sometimes this helps those scores rise, and sometimes it just highlights the fact that teachers aren't teaching much of anything except what's on the test, and may not be teaching that material very well, either.
Long story short - Indian Creek can afford to be cavalier about tests, and Crestview cannot. This seems like common sense to me, yet you'll often see anti-testing types (often in well-funded schools) trying to abolish tests for all schools, when those test scores are essential benchmarks for the low performers.
Posted by kswygert at March 8, 2005 04:17 PM