There is a monster waiting for your children in the spring. Its creators have fashioned it so that however children may prepare for it, they will be undone by its clever industry.
The children know it’s coming. They have encountered it every year since third grade, and every year it has taken parts of their souls. And not just in the spring. Every day in class, the children are asked which answer is right, although the smarter children realize that sometimes there are parts of several answers that could be right.
And they sit. And they write.
Not to express their understanding of the world. Or to even form their own opinions about ideas they have read. Instead, they must dance the steps that they have been told are important: First, build your writing with a certain number of words, sentences, paragraphs; second, make sure your writing contains the words in the question; third, begin each part with “first, second,” and “third.”
My wife sat with our 10-year-old grandson to write in their journals one summer afternoon, and he asked her, “What’s the prompt?”
I proctored a standardized test for “below average” freshmen one year. They read a writing prompt which asked them to “take a position … .” One student asked me if he should sit or stand.
There are those who are so immersed in the sea of testing that they do not see the figurative nature of language and naively think that the monster they have created is helping children. Or maybe they just think they are helping the test publishers (who also happen to write the textbooks, “aligned to the standards” that are sold to schools).
Those test-creators live in an ocean of adult assumptions about how children use language — about how children reason. They breath in the water of their assumptions through the gills of their biases. But the children have no gills. They drown in the seas of preconceptions.
They are bound to a board, hooded, and then immersed in lessons that make them practice battling the monster. “How much do you know?” the interrogators scream. The children, gasping for air, try to tell them in the allotted time. “Not enough!” the interrogators cry. Back under the sea of assumptions to see if they can grow gills. “This is how you get to college!” the interrogators call. And on and on, year after year, the children are college-boarded into submission.
What do they learn? That school is torture. That learning is drudgery.
There are those who rebut these charges with platitudes of “accountability,” but, just as the fast food industry co-opted nutrition and convenience in the last century, the assessment industry is co-opting our children’s education now. As Albert Einstein said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Would that the measurement advocates would measure the unintended consequences of their decisions.
Our political leaders — surprise — have bent under the pressure of businessmen wearing the masks of “rigor” and “accountability.” They have sacrificed our children’s joy of learning on the alter of expediency.
Here’s what should happen: Teachers in their own classrooms, using multiple performance assessments where children apply their knowledge in the context of a given task, determine what their students know and what they need to learn, based on standards developed by that school, district or, possibly, state. Teachers should take students where they are and help them progress at their own developmental rates. And good teachers are doing that every day. Not because of standardized tests, but in spite of them.
Students’ abilities can be evaluated in many, creative ways. The idea that every student take the same test at the same time is nothing more than the warmed-over factory model of education used in the 1950s, now laughingly called “education reform.”
As Oscar Wilde has observed, “Conformity is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”
Don Batt of Denver is a English teacher at Grandview High School in the Cherry Creek School District.
Author: Mile High Mamas
Dave
As my High School Freshman child prepares – with complete disgust – for the two week ordeal of these tests, its interesting to see what ploys the teachers come up with: your scores determine if you can get a drivers license, scores go on your transcript, and so on. The kids are now so bored and jaded that they just don’t care.
D
Great article. As a parent, and a 2nd year teacher after a successful career in another field, I couldn’t agree more with the ridiculousness of standardized testing and its negative effects on everyone- with nothing positive to show for it. As for teachers hating it for accountability, that’s right, and for good reason. No other professional is judged by a test that others must take. They are judged by their own performance reviews. Many teachers are “babysitters” for kids who have no intention on learning. You cannot force a kid to learn or force parent to send them to school well-fed, on time, or at all! Students often miss 20+ days of school, but teachers are expected to make sure they are proficient??! No wonder all the good teachers are leaving. I see it every week. America is in big trouble unless we take the lead of the Scandinavian countries. There is a reason we are #27 in education in the world… and it isn’t the teachers who pursue the jobs for the right reasons. It’s the government politicians, parents, and administrators who only care about the $$$ they get from higher test scores.
No Child Left Behind is an embarrassment. Race to the top is a scam, a joke. So is standardized testing (which is written by middle-aged, white women for female students). There is a reason why smart parents are homeschooling and not giving a crap about how they fare on a manipulated test.
Jo
Thank you Thank you Thank you for this wonderful article, it tells the truth about what is happening in our schools today. It is the students, our children, our grandchildren, who are suffering the effects of the corporate test driven agenda. It is hence, the future of this nation that will also suffer as a result. Parents must wake up to this ailment in our schools and demand real reform, which is not the wolf in sheep’s clothing that is being called “reform” today. One of the tragedies is that young teachers get right on board, older teachers who know better fear for their jobs so many do not speak out, even though they can see the cancer that has been growing in their schools for years now. It is not too late to turn this around. For those interested, this will add to the conversation:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands-Schools-Successful.html
P
There are some of us that do speak out, and quite loudly, only to be harassed and eventually driven out of districts by educrat administrators who only care about their own agendas and not about educating children. I feel sorry for those young teachers you mention Jo. They have no idea what they’ve gotten themselves into: an archaic 150-year old education system that is fighting tooth and nail to remain viable in the face of increasing statistics and real-time experience that it is failing miserably.
Peggy
Students and parents are waking up and are beginning to refuse the test. These high stakes tests are destroying our public schools and leaving us with test prep schools void of creative, critical and conceptual thinking. We need citizens who can think and problem solve in order to help our democracy thrive. Instead, our children labor at the hands of Pearson and McGraw-Hill and all the other corporations who are currently profiting off of our public schools. This is not about learning or learners – this is about fast cash on the backs of our children and our public tax dollars. In addition, as the common core NATIONAL standards take hold there will be more testing and more technology needed to administer the tests – we simply don’t even know at this point how the schools will be able to afford it – these tests roll out in 2014. In order to stop this train we must get off it. Refuse the test. Take back local control of our public schools and allow teachers to teach and students to learn. Teachers know how to assess their learners. Students in Denver have had enough and are walking out of the TCAP on March 14th, Defend Education Day. See here http://unitedoptout.com/alex-kacsh-colorado-student-walkout-info-march-14th/ . Portland, Oregon students are joining them and will be walking out too. Refuse the test and save the public schools. Without the test the profit ends for the corporations. And don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can’t opt out. You can.
Parents and students are opting out all over Colorado. The teachers are required to administer the test but the students and parents may refuse. My own son will not be taking the test in the Littleton School District. And schools do NOT lose funding when you opt out. If I can help you with opting out please email me at [email protected] and join the Denver students Thursday as they walkout of the state test. These are our schools. WE pay for them. WE demand real learning and real teaching.
David
The world is filled with tests and nearly all tests are standardized. The days are past when you learn a subject without a textbook. The textbook publisher has a battery of tests to cover the material. Yes, that makes these tests standardized.
Decades ago we had something called Ucheckit that was a template you would lay over a blank sheet of paper to self test for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. That was a standardized test and both speed and accuracy were needed to score well. Every (I mean every) teacher uses standardized test materials. How does a student’s creativity only get killed when the test results are reported beyond the teacher? The answer is obvious that the problem is the teacher and not the test or the test reporting.
6thGradeTeacher
A Rally & March and Student-Led Walkout to Defend Education is coming March 14th. Would love to see the Post covering this in detail.
R42
The problem is not that the results are reported outside the classroom. The problem is that these results are being used by others, not just the teacher. The scores HAVE to look good because they now effect the principal and the superintendent. That’s a problem because our administrators require excellent scores so they can look good. So they encourage us to cheat. And by cheating I mean: teaching to the test even though it is not in the kids best interest to do so; teaching just the subjects tested, eliminating or marginalizing science, social studies, geography, art, craft, shop, PE, electives; teaching test taking strategies instead of rich, deep content. As an example, I am encouraged to teach less hands-on science and provide a more laser-like focus on the narrow state standards, with more reading strategies, summary writing and multiple choice tests. That is the problem.
Jolene
You are a bit delusional if you think that these tests are in the best interest of the students. Don’t misinterpret my stating that as me being against testing and/or accountability, as that is not the case. However, the State testing that is being administered is far from helpful. Most people do not fully understand the implications of NCLB.
It required ALL students to take standardized academic State testing. You may think ‘what’s wrong with that’? Well, there is a law that requires ALL students the right to a free, appropriate public education (FAPE). This requires even the most severely disabled children to attend public schools. Unlike many of our foreign counterparts who would merely ‘throw away’ these students, we are required to educate them.
NCLB requires that these students participate in those same standardized tests! Instead of learning the much needed life skills, they are required to learn academics that will never be of any use to them. [Refer to the poem My Older Brother Daryl Poem] (I’ll copy it at the bottom of this post)
How would you feel if your child was terminally ill and in the hospital and the school showed up to administer the State’s standardized test!!!????? Think that’s ridiculous? Well, that is EXACTLY what happens! Moreover, NCLB has a cap on how many children can take an alternative form of the test so if you happen to be a school that has a high number of special education students then you’re just out of luck and your school will score poorly.
THIS breeds hostility towards students with special needs! Think I’m wrong? Well I’m NOT! I should know, I teach special needs students. Administrators all across the country blame their test scores on the ‘stupid special ed. kids’! It’s utterly disgusting! Surely none of these children want to be someone with special needs and surely they DO NOT want to be made the scapegoats and ostracized from their peers and society!
Jill Carter
My daughter is in second grade and is already dreading these tests, knowing they are coming for her next year. Her teacher is in a complete tizzy, trying to get her tested for proof that she will need more time on the math portion, knowing already that she will need it since he taught third grade last year. Our poor kids, this is insane.
Catherine Tidd
Great piece. As a mom of three, I have two kids in standardized testing hell this month and it has completely stressed them out.
When I was 12 years old, my mother brought my sister and me in for aptitude tests and they gave us the insight that because of the way I learned, standardized and multiple choice tests would always be a struggle for me. That knowledge changed how I went about studying for tests and even how I picked my major in college (English, because writing essays was much easier for me than other ways of testing my knowledge). If I had to do what my kids are doing right now at this age…I would have been a basket case!
I can understand some of the reasoning behind why they do this, but it still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. AND it takes away from time in the classroom when my kids should actually be LEARNING.
Again, great piece.
jj
Ah, yes! This testing business is taking over our household sanity. Luckily the kids aren’t too stressed, but they’re jumping through hoops, lagging along, dragging feet and prepping so hard it’s depleting oxygen to the intrinsic fire – or genius- as Rick Ackerly would call it. I’d be bored too! I think you’ll enjoy this post – Thieves of Discovery: Goodies and Punishments and Stickers, OH MY – Thanks for sharing the sentiments so many others are thinking! Great post.
http://vickihoefle.com/2013/02/thieves-of-discovery-goodies-and-punishments-and-stickers-oh-my/