All across the state of Texas, the wildflowers are in bloom, the trees are budding and the long awaited spring has arrived. However if you are in education, you are unaware of any of this. You are surrounded by walls covered in butcher paper, rows of desks, piles of dictionaries, and pencils sharpened to a point that could impale.
It is testing season here in Texas, and for many this marks the end of a marathon of drills and reviews, and the endless writing of essays meant to explain, persuade or entertain. As a classroom teacher the week following the state assessment, the students would invariably ask why we were still in school; the testing was over, what more did we have to do? Many parents feel the same way. The battle has been fought, in 4-6 weeks we will find out if we have slain the beast or if it has beaten us. But in reality, is this all the year has meant? Is this test, this snapshot of student achievement really what we worked all year for?
Many years ago, while in college learning the pedagogy of educational practices I was told that assessment was only as good as the decisions that we could derive from it. If we set the assessment up as the watermark for pass/fail, then we know nothing more than which students "met standard" and which did not. The State assessment serves as a useless tool for instructional decisions.
By the time the results are returned to campuses the school year is days away from completion. The information gathered by looking over the individual student reports will tell us which categories of questions we need to re-mediate before the next test, but it doesn't give us critical information about what the student understands. This test can no more determine a student's readiness for College or the next grade level than a lucky 8 ball can predict the future.
The state of Texas can't even decide what subjects will be tested. Last year as the campus testing coordinator I had to organize two testing schedules. The first was for the final year of TAKS testing for students graduating in 2014.The other was the STAAR test for all students graduating in 2015 and beyond. Last year STAAR tests were given for English I Reading, English I Writing, English II Reading, English II Writing, Algebra I, Biology, US History (field tested), English III (field tested) and Geometry (field tested). This fall the state decided that testing in all of the content areas for grades 9-11 was too much and reduced it. They introduced a new version of the English EOC by combining the reading and writing tests into one large test and decreasing the students' time to 5 hours instead of 8. There are still some out there who believe that more changes are yet to come. How can we depend on a system of assessments to discern a students understanding, when the state can't even decide what is important enough to assess and what isn't.
Recently parents have been in the headlines for stating that they won't send their kids to school on the days the state assessments will be given. They would rather keep their children home than expose them to the lunacy of state assessments. What is the point?
If we as educators can't draw information from the assessments to guide instructional practices, the state can't decide what to test, or when. or how, and parents are refusing to allow students to be subjected to the testing why are we bothering? Who does all of this nonsense benefit? To what great debt do we owe Pearson and the powers that be for creating this chaos, confusion and consternation?
I am sorry to say I don't have the answers to those questions, but I do know what I will be doing in the next few weeks. I will be throwing open the windows to let in the cool breeze of spring. I will rejuvenate classroom instruction after the long hibernation of test prep. I will welcome spring and not wait idly by the mailbox to find out what my students know, instead I will create authentic assessments that drive instructional practices and decisions.
Until next time...
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