Tests, Tests, Tests - Whoopee!

I’d like to say a thing or two about State/Fed mandated TESTS!! Actually, I’d like to say a lot!

The Feds and the State want the public schools to be accountable. Our society wants assurances the tax dollars they spend will produce educated kids. I get it!

The ‘conspiracy’ part of my brain can’t help but wonder if the ‘anti-public school’ fringe has found a way to target the public school system and reduce tax dollars going to this endeavor. Is it possible people doling out the funds and the mandates for public schools are hoping for failure? Or maybe they just have NO CLUE as to what is needed to educate ALL of America’s children; ALL the children….not a select (very ) few privileged children? ALL our children MUST receive GREAT education if America wants to remain a world-wide powerhouse.

OK….forget the ‘conspiracy’ issue. Let’s look at the practice of the mandated tests , tests, tests, and more tests.

My 8th graders’ language arts, reading, and math tests are FINALY OVER for this year; pretty much no surprises from the results. We knew who would do well and who would not. We have intermittently worked on ‘benchmarks’ all year and the entire 3rd 9-weeks were dedicated to the drill and practice of these ‘benchmarks.’ We taught the content with HUGE emphasis on ‘test-taking’ skills.

I’m lucky in the fact my kids do try to do their best. They have ‘bought-into’ the idea we use these tests results to alter curriculum, teaching methods, and their own ‘plan of study.’ This is accurate to a point. Teachers have always looked at a variety of measures, and we still do.

Test days (6 days – 60 to 70 minutes for each subject area) are exhausting…for me!!! And I’m not even taking the test. I honestly do not know how the kids do it. It’s INTENSE and EXHAUSTING for them!

Rules for administering these are just hysterical. Teachers are NEVER to tell the kid to ‘work-out’ the problem, NEVER tell the kid to use scratch-paper, NEVER tell the kid they are not allowed to ‘rush’ through the test. NEVER tell the kids prior to the test to review notes/vocabulary/formulas. What sense does this make?

As adults we do all of these things prior to taking a test??? We learned these skills because we were taught this in school and TOLD TO DO IT!!. These skills were reinforced every time we were about to take a test. Teachers said, “10 minutes to review before we start the test……”

Realizing we do get some information from these ‘tests’ about the students’ performance levels, abilities, weak areas…..is for the most part what we already know. I do not believe the information we get is worth the time spent preparing and administering. The information is CERTAINLY NOT valid to use as a SOLE indicator of student achievement . It is just as ridiculous to use these tests to evaluate teachers and/or identify the GREAT teachers.

What I resent the MOST is amount of taxpayer dollars and time taken away from actual learning time and dollars we could spend getting our children more access to adults within the school system.

The smaller the group of kids a teacher works with the better. Research that has been done (which isn’t much and certainly does not cover older students) puts the number at below 15 for early grades. My experiences (Ever here of ‘action’ research?) would suggest more like 10 kids per classroom teacher….YES, for all classrooms K-8. This would be large enough to do group work/ peer learning and small enough for individual teaching and assistance.

I GET IT…..the taxpayers want RESULTS for their money. What I DON’T GET is WHY the professionals in education are not ASKED or LISTENED to as to how to get those RESULTS!