I’m a terrible test taker. I’ve always gotten at least a slight amount of testing anxiety during exams, whether I was taking a state standardized test or a midterm in college. Despite having usually prepared for my exams as thoroughly as I could have, there’s something about the pressure of success being whittled down to a numerical score that makes me most nervous.
On Friday, my 6th graders took a standardized test, one which is administered several times throughout the year, to measure their growth over the school year. I could feel some of their anxiety as I tried to encourage them, all the while stifling my inner voice that wanted to whisper advice or comment on their written portion.
In the broad scope of public education, tests are a vital way to determine whether students are learning and retaining content and skills taught in their core subjects. In theory, exams should provide an objective measure to educators to assess their areas of instructional growth.
Standardized testing in the U.S has become a mandatory element of educational policy, especially with the passage of No Child Left Behind. This piece of legislation made it possible for the federal government to supply specific states with more funding if they met AYP (annual yearly progress). School districts which weren’t meeting this goal were swiftly penalized while those that were proficient continued to receive federal funding.
Unsurprisingly, this legislation didn’t produce the desired outcomes and it certainly didn’t close the “achievement gap” it sought to cure. By 2014, all students between 3rd and 8th grade were to be on or above grade level in both math and reading, according to NCLB. Today, 41 states in the U.S have been approved for flexibility from the law, thus allowing each state to reconfigure a system to both accurately assess student progress and provide accountability measures for school districts.
Legislation that addresses the end product (student results) without also investing in the means (teacher/school input) is bound for failure. By placing school districts under the boot of higher stakes testing and high pressure measures, NCLB ignored the resources necessary to prepare students for those measures. With the shift in legislation and the incoming Common Core standards, it seems that testing will continue to be a major part of educational reform in the U.S. In addition to providing a standard measure of student achievement, the move now is to standardize skills that students will learn across states.
How can we focus on other variables that affect student achievement?
Reinvesting in authentic and realistic teacher training programs
Teacher input, although only one variable in equation of public education, is an important factor in a student’s success. (If you haven’t already, check out my post about a particular teacher preparation program that seeks to provide more trained teachers in high needs areas.) A focus on reinvesting in teacher training, both before educators are in front of children and while they are fine tuning their practice, could address HOW students are learning. There certainly isn’t one model that guarantees successful teachers across the board, but by collaborating with higher education institutions and public school districts, state and federal governments could begin to invest in the way teachers learn their practice.
Fair and objective measures and tests
Despite the misleading name, it can be nearly impossible to administer an exam to several children that will be completely fair and objective. If an exam question for a 6th grader contains vocabulary that a student doesn’t recognize, thus preventing the student from understanding the question, what is the question assessing? Vocabulary, or an important critical thinking skill? While these exams try to account for these instances, it’s arguable that a student in Brooklyn, NY might not encounter the same vocabulary, even in a school setting, as a student who lives in Buffalo, NY. Without eliminating tests completely, test design that takes into account the diverse population of students who will be taking the exam could help equalize student outcomes.
Equal educational opportunities
This variable is much more nuanced than simply rewriting an exam. The intrinsic nature of inequality among school districts, sometimes even within the same city, is a difficult issue to address with major, structural reform. Providing each student in each school with an equal chance at a quality education would outweigh the need for looking more closely at standardized exams. Examining the racial and socioeconomic factors that affect schools, particularly in urban neighborhoods, could refocus the conversation around meaningful reform.
Musings of a Burgeoning Brooklynite 