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Friday, June 15, 2007
High Stakes Testing: What No One’s Telling You
Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati
In our culture of high stakes testing, we have become fixated on test scores and district passing rates. Those schools with low passage rates are deemed ineffective in the court of public opinion, and the public seems not to care that certain schools have students who come to the table with more disadvantages than students at other schools—be those disadvantages economic, psychological, learning based, and so forth. But amidst this frenzy about testing, and this talk about standards, there is something no one’s telling you: by and large, teachers find the test to be an impediment to good learning, and state standards are not legally required—though most teachers think they are.
What we have, then, are teachers wasting time playing a matching game—finding the coded state standard to which a particular classroom activity aligns for the sake of documentation. That is time not spent trying to find creative new ways to teach kids. That is time spent sterilizing the learning process. The whole culture of the tests also encourages the teaching of OGT-specific test-taking skills—which is entirely different from teaching content or intellectual skills.
Professional teaching organizations have always been skeptical of these tests. According to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, “placing too much emphasis on a single test or on testing can undermine the quality of education and jeopardize equality of opportunity.”
The National Council of Teachers of English take this sentiment a step further:
According to Karla Carruthers, press secretary for the Ohio Department of Education, “No school is legally required to align its curriculum to our standards ... Ohio is a local control state.”
One must wonder, then, whether the perceived emergency of students not passing the Ohio Graduation Tests relates to teachers not aligning their lessons to state standards, or whether they are spending too much time doing something that is not legally required!
Most people have never had the pleasure of seeing what it would be like to allegedly “align” a lesson with state standards. For those on the outside, it may sound like a perfectly reasonable strategy for being “accountable.” For the sake of argument, let’s just consider a 12th grade English class. In such a class, you may expect to read a piece of literature, and then write a paper about it. There are certain skills that go along with reading literature—like recognizing literary elements, considering theme, asking open-ended questions inspired by the text, and so forth. There are certain skills that go along with writing, too—like staying focused, organized, scholarly, etc. So let’s say a teacher, in preparing a student for college (or for a test) wants to give kids experience reading a text and writing a paper. Before doing that, many schools (under the false impression of a legal requirement) require teachers to “align themselves to standards.” That means the teacher will have to look through the enormous standards book, finding things like the following to enter into a “lesson plan form” for the purposes of documentation and political accountability:
Reading Process: Concepts of Print, Comprehension Strategies and Self-Monitoring Strategies
1. Apply reading comprehension strategies, including making predictions, comparing and contrasting, recalling and summarizing and making inferences and drawing conclusions.
2. Answer literal, inferential, evaluative and synthesizing questions to demonstrate comprehension of grade-appropriate print texts and electronic and visual media.
3. Monitor own comprehension by adjusting speed to fit the purpose, or by skimming, scanning, reading on, looking back, note taking or summarizing what has been read so far in text.
Reading Applications: Literary Text
1. Compare and contrast motivations and reactions of literary characters confronting similar conflicts (e.g., individual vs. nature, freedom vs. responsibility, individual vs. society), using specific examples of characters’ thoughts, words and actions.
2. Analyze the historical, social and cultural context of setting.
3. Explain how voice and narrator affect the characterization, plot
and credibility.
4. Evaluate an author’s use of point of view in a literary text.
5. Analyze variations of universal themes in literary texts.
8. Evaluate ways authors develop point of view and style to achieve specific rhetorical and aesthetic purposes (e.g., through use of figurative language irony, tone, diction, imagery, symbolism and sounds of language), citing specific examples from text to support analysis.
Writing Processes
1. Generate writing ideas through discussions with others and from printed material, and keep a list of writing ideas.
2. Determine the usefulness of and apply appropriate pre-writing tasks (e.g., background reading, interviews or surveys).
3. Establish and develop a clear thesis statement for informational writing or a clear plan or outline for narrative writing.
4. Determine a purpose and audience and plan strategies (e.g., adapting formality of style, including explanations or definitions as appropriate to audience needs) to address purpose and audience.
5. Use organizational strategies (e.g., notes and outlines) to plan writing.
6. Organize writing to create a coherent whole with an effective and engaging introduction, body and conclusion and a closing sentence that summarizes, extends or elaborates on points or ideas in the writing.
7. Use a variety of sentence structures and lengths (e.g., simple, compound and complex sentences; parallel or repetitive sentence structure).
8. Use paragraph form in writing, including topic sentences that arrange paragraphs in a logical sequence, using effective transitions and closing sentences and maintaining coherence across the whole through the use of parallel structures.
9. Use precise language, action verbs, sensory details, colorful modifiers and style as appropriate to audience and purpose, and use techniques to convey a personal style and voice.
10. Use available technology to compose text.
11. Reread and analyze clarity of writing, consistency of point of view and effectiveness of organizational structure.
12. Add and delete examples and details to better elaborate on a stated central idea, to develop more precise analysis or persuasive argument or to enhance plot, setting and character in narrative texts.
13. Rearrange words, sentences and paragraphs and add transitional words and phrases to clarify meaning and achieve specific aesthetic and rhetorical purposes.
14. Use resources and reference materials (e.g., dictionaries and thesauruses) to select effective and precise vocabulary that maintains consistent style, tone and voice.
15. Proofread writing, edit to improve conventions (e.g., grammar, spelling, punctuation and capitalization), identify and correct fragments and run-ons and eliminate inappropriate slang or informal language.
Writing Applications
2. Write responses to literature that:
a. advance a judgment that is interpretative, analytical, evaluative or reflective;
b. support key ideas and viewpoints with accurate and detailed references to the text or to other works and authors;c. analyze the author’s use of stylistic devices and express an appreciation of the effects the devices create;
d. identify and assess the impact of possible ambiguities, nuances and complexities within text;
e. anticipate and answer a reader’s questions, counterclaims or divergent interpretations; and
f. provide a sense of closure to the writing.
Writing Conventions
1. Use correct spelling conventions.
2. Use correct capitalization and punctuation
3. Use correct grammar (e.g, verb tenses, parallel structure, indefinite
and relative pronouns).
Are you still with us? That was almost three pages of “standards” because an English teacher wanted to have students write an essay after reading a text. Can you imagine doing this for each activity you design as a teacher? What if your district requires you to have daily plans? Even weekly plans? With everything aligned to the state? How much time is spent playing a complex matching game, and there is not even a legal requirement to do it.
Do students perform better on high-stakes tests because their teachers spend time finding standards to enter onto lesson plan forms for keeping on file with a school district?
Justin Jeffre contributed to this report.
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15 Jun 2007 at 07:09 am | #
If teachers consider tests are a bad thing, then why do they keep on giving their students tests?
15 Jun 2007 at 10:28 am | #
You left out the descriptor “high stakes.” Most tests in single high school classes do not, all by themselves, determine whether you can graduate or not.
15 Jun 2007 at 11:24 am | #
Dean - I assume the kids have the opportunity to retake the exam if they don’t pass the first time through don’t they?
15 Jun 2007 at 11:32 am | #
“If a student does not pass all sections of the test on their first try they will be able to re take the sections that they need to pass during their junior and senior years. Ohio Graduation Tests are taken each fall and spring, with an optional summer test available within some school districts.” -Article
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/184280/ohio_graduation_test.html
It sounds like they have at least 5 shots to get it right, and they only need to retake the sections that they missed.
15 Jun 2007 at 11:51 am | #
You totally miss the point. Re-taking a different version of the test six months or a year later is not like how you characterize it. Further, are all high school teachers, at all levels, supposed to be preparing kids for taking the test?
If the test is given at the end of 10th grade, and you don’t pass, do you expect 11th and 12th grade teachers to still prep for the test? And if not, what about those kids who miss it the first time through? What should they do?
The truth is that good students get screwed by the system, perhaps because they can’t pass the Math OGT.
And even more screwy is the culture of standards-alignment that so many professional educators think a legal requirement, though it is not.
Take a long look at those standards in the article. Actually read them all. Do you think forcing teachers to play a match game with their lessons improves the quality of education in our schools? Really?
15 Jun 2007 at 10:12 pm | #
I thought for a second while reading your post that you had taken my advice and were working to change the testing requirements for the OGT. Apparently you are still of the opinion that students and teachers should have no verifiable standards to be held to. Free love education; a sort of learn what you want, if you want, and it’s OK, you’ll still get a diploma. It won’t mean anything but you’ll still get one.
16 Jun 2007 at 08:07 am | #
I have never said there should be “no verifiable standards.” Why do you love putting words in my mouth?
16 Jun 2007 at 08:08 am | #
Also, you totally ignore the point. I can’t believe anyone with good sense will look at that laundry list of standards, and believe something productive happens when a teacher who wants to assign an essay has to play a complicated needle-haystack matching game for filling out lesson plan forms.
If education as a system has gotten less effective, it is because teachers are wasting their time with so-called alignment.
16 Jun 2007 at 09:09 am | #
What, in that laundry list of standards, would you eliminate and why?
16 Jun 2007 at 11:17 am | #
I think most educators agree that standardized testing hinders the teaching-learning process in more ways than can be imagined.
You are perfectly correct in acknowledging the fact that students come from diverse backgrounds--no one enters the classroom with the same set of skills, psychological preparation, emotional maturity, etc. By aligning lesson plans with testing protocol, all of the elements previously mentioned have the potential to become barriers in a student’s learning process.
When we strive to reach certain numbers as a means to satisfy school boards and state mandates (real or illusion) the students who are most vulnerable (the disadvantaged students--no matter what the disadvantage) tend to slip through the cracks.
Standardized testing should be a means to look at our educational system and find out where those cracks are. It should be a means of testing school administrators—not the teachers. Low scores on certain sections of the tests should be seen as an opportunity to improve curriculum and identify certain individual student deficiencies. NOT as a means to impose an impossible task to an already over burdened, underpaid teacher’s schedule in a way in which requires the most important elements of teaching (inspiration, creativity, compassion, leadership) to lack as a result.
Not to mention, as an Adjunct Professor teaching Freshman Comp. for university level students, I feel compelled to point out that standardized testing really doesn’t amount to much in the long run. Assuming that all of my students have passed the ACT adequately (or at least to the point in which they have been admitted to an accredited four year university)--meaning they have in fact graduated high school and are ‘prepared’ to move on to pursue a ‘higher education’ many still can not write a good essay to save their lives even if the College Admissions Board (which is governed by standardized testing)says otherwise.
17 Jun 2007 at 07:20 am | #
I once worked as a grader for a standardized writing test—something administered as OGT prep. So basically I was trained as an OGT test grader.
Because the students were writing under a time limit, we were told to ignore spelling and grammar unless it made the writing incomprehensible.
What’s funny, then, with all this talk of high standards, is how it has become more important to get my kids writing a timed five paragraph essay with little regard for spelling and grammar than it is to teach them how to become real writers.
I have seen one of the best student writers I ever met—a future valedictorian—score significantly lower on a standardized writing test than another student of perfectly average abilities, at best. The latter wrote a standard five paragraph offering. The former wrote a rather sophisticated, and intellectually complicated piece. It probably required too much time to analyze as a grader, in a room with hundreds of people pumping out grades on hundreds of essays an hour.
17 Jun 2007 at 05:47 pm | #
I am a little perplexed by this article. I dont think the point of the article is to make teachers seem dumb, but if your point is teachers cant teach because they have to educated kids to the lowest level expected (which is what standards are), then you are doing just that.
I am a former undergrad educator who also had to incorporate standards into my lesson plans. It didnt matter how I taught the content, it could be through videos shown in class, individual or group assignments, presentations, demonstrations, etc., but I had to be able to prove that I was including required content. Teaching is the most creative, free-thinking career choice possible, with limitless boundaries and sorry, but I dont agree with yor premise. Neither do I see the stress involved in the “writing process” standard. If a teacher explains to a kid HOW to pre-write and collect his/her thoughts and diagram main ideas and supporting ideas, compose the essay,proof-read, use the thesaurus or dictionary to avoid over-use of favorite words, leave it alone for a day and return to tweak it even more, then the entire steps 2-15 can be completed in a very short time because it all flows together.
If teachers themselves are not able to grasp simple concepts such as these then maybe that explains why the kids are so messed up? No, teachers DO NOT have to teach to the standard. They have to incorporate standards into their lessons. That is two different things and personally, I dont want my kid stuck with a teacher who uses the lowest level possible (which is what standards are) to dictate his or her lesson plans. Our kids deserve more.
17 Jun 2007 at 06:10 pm | #
So, you complain about the makeup of the test, you exhort students to skip the test and get diplomas from a diploma mill in Vermont; and when asked a question about, what you might consider a part of the solution you refuse to respond. What’s up with that?
19 Jun 2007 at 05:42 pm | #
Academic Watch--
You are failing to take into account that steps 2-15 of the writing process are taught in layers and over several years of education. When students enter high school--they are bringing with them a variety of different skill levels. This would give Instructors only a year or so to assess their students, figure out what their needs are and to
before they were required to take the test to demonstrate they have not only learned these skills but also perfected them.I don’t see how that leaves much time for creativity or free-thinking.
19 Jun 2007 at 06:28 pm | #
Ah-ha! You have figured out what’s really at play, here. Though it sounds good, the last thing any community really wants is a bunch of free-thinking, creative, and might I add critical thinkers running around.
I mean, who would perform the menial labor for cheap?
19 Jun 2007 at 10:09 pm | #
Librariangrrl,
If teachers are allowing kids years to adequately prepare to write a freaking essay then they need to be kicked out of the classroom. It does not take years to do what I described, only the desire to properly educate and it can be done in weeks, not years. Is the dumbing down of American (urban) kids deliberate? Yeah, because suburban families would not accept these lame excuses. Underachieving teachers only get away with non-teaching in large public school districts. Try telling parents at Cincinnati Country Day for starters about how writing a simple essay takes years and see how long a teacher lasts.
And Dean,
Are you saying that teachers themselves are assisting in the conspiracy to keep the population stupid? My free-thinking comment was directed at the teachers having the ability to creatively instruct, not the product of creative teachers which just might be creative and free-thinking students.
Again I reiterate that your points are missing the mark and are making teachers seem (1) complicit in conspiring to miseducate and (2) stupid as sin.
20 Jun 2007 at 11:29 am | #
Re: to Comment 15--Of course we don’t want free thinkers in the classroom....Those damn kids ask too many questions and stir up alot of trouble…
Re: to Comment 16--The writing process takes years to develop. How can you not understand this????
You don’t explain to a second grader how to write an essay and then expect them to do it-- You might, however explain to them how to write a sentence--how to make the subject and verb agree--so on and so forth and then build from there.
The same goes for an eighth grader. At no point in MY education did someone simply state the facts as you mentioned and then expect me to churn out an essay…
Then again--I was fortunte enough to recieve an amazing education.
I think you are missing the point.
Perhaps you should stop worrying about steps 2-15 of the writing process and start concentrating on those reading comprehension skills.
21 Jun 2007 at 05:24 am | #
Librariangrrl,
Are you a teacher? I’m a taxpayer (paying the salary of incompetents who think you can teach a child to write an essay years) and a parent and I sure as hell dont want you anywhere around my child.
PS, that comment about starting at second grade was a lame way of covering up your inability to comprehend the issue. Are teachers really that stupid nowadays?
21 Jun 2007 at 01:46 pm | #
I am a Librarian--imagine that…
Being that I retain faculty status at the institution in which I am employed--I am also required to teach a certain amount of credit hours per quarter, as well as do research in my specialty area. My current reaserch project happens to be on Information Literacy as it pertains to (Freshman Comp.) students in their first year of college.
Since I also volunteer at a literacy advocacy non-profit, as well as have facilitated writing workshops for inner city teens during the summer, I would say that I care deeply about the issue at hand, as well as know a little bit about it.
I’ve never heard of a teacher explain to a student how to write a paper in the manner in which you described and then expect them to do it. Writing is a process that involves many layers (grammar, reading comprehension, critical thinking, etc.) and these layers do not happen over night nor do they happen simultaneously.
Since it happens in such a way--logic tells me that it would be difficult to test students in this area--given the way our schools are set up. When we are required to test students on a subject such as writing an essay--and require specific outcome measures as a means to gauge the success of our educational system A LOT (more than you would think) of students are falling through the cracks because teachers are not catering their lesson plans to the students--they are catering to the administration.
To break it down a bit further for you, since you seem to be having a bit of difficulty--the key point here lies in the fact that we all know that catering a lesson plan to achieve specific standardized test results is bad, bad, BAD--but what the Dean pointed out was that in some school districts, Administration is requiring teachers to do this anyway--even though the state law does not require it.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons the public school system is failing its students?
To clarify, the issues we were discussing surround the the theoretics of standardized testing--NOT the intellect of teachers, as far as I understood it.
Again, I’m afraid you missed the mark.
Reading comprehension skills, dear.
21 Jun 2007 at 06:46 pm | #
Academic Watch--
I think you are missing some of the sarcasm in this conversation thread… I also fear that you have little understanding of developmental theory or education in a general sense.
Teaching essays writing combines all facets of English. If you are deficient in one area (reading comprehension, grammar, organization, etc.) your essay will suffer in that area. When I said that it takes years to learn to write an essay--I meant exactly that. All of the skills necessary to write an essay are learned over YEARS--not weeks as you suggested.
When you look at the way the public school system is set up--you must understand that when students enter high school they are coming from a variety of different educational backgrounds--with a variety of different needs--while I’m sure there is an acceptable standard that they must meet before they are promoted from one grade to the next, they are not all at the same skill level when they enter one high school that has 20 some odd feeder grammar schools.
You can not compare a private school--Summit Country Day School in particular, to the diverse demographics (and in turn diverse needs) that are present in any typical public school classroom.
Private schools have the ability to test students on their intellect before they admit them into the classroom. They do not accept the students who do not score well on their admisson tests, hence weeding out the average in search of the elite from the very beginning. There is no such thing as scoring low on standardized tests in a private school because most, if not all of the students granted admission to these schools, could pass those tests before they were permitted to step foot in the classroom. Admittedly, most of those students also come from private grammar schools and probably had the ability to pass those tests in 6th grade or before.
Of course parents who send their children to Summit Country Day School wouldn’t stand for poor test scores, or students slipping through the cracks of a failed educational system--on top of those taxes you are complaining about paying, they are shelling out $13,000 a year to make sure this doesn’t happen to their child!
21 Jun 2007 at 10:04 pm | #
I paid thousands of dollars for private tutoring for someone to go over the exact same steps of essay writing with my child exactly as I described, so yeah, I do know what I’m talking about. And I’m tired of reading about how it takes years because it doesn’t. My child learned very quickly I dont care how much time you volunteer, you dont know what the hell you are talking about. If teachers had the same condescending attitudes about learning ability based on economic background that you do that would explain the disparity in education. And yeah I still assert that teachers must be dumb if they cant incorporate simple ass standards into their lesson plans. The current cost per student in CPS is about $12,000 so you make a great although unintended reason to support vouchers. For $1000 more a kid could get a great education at a private school!
22 Jun 2007 at 11:09 am | #
I’m not certain as to why you are ignoring the key concepts here-- but this conversation thread is repetitive and redundant, your language is rude, abrasive and disrespectful. I see no point in conversing with someone who is not listening. To address your final concerns:
I said that the skills it takes to write an essay accumulate over SEVERAL years--argue as much as you wish--this is a fact. We build upon those skills each year of education, and then throw a bunch of students together who learned all these skills at a different pace and though different teachers into one big melting pot (called high school) and expect them to all perform at the same level. Some students are bound to fall through the cracks in the system. Apparently, as you explained it, your child did.
Back to the issue at hand, imposing standardized testing on students isn’t fair because they are not all at the same level and can not be expected to be--at least not at this point. It is also ridiculous to require teachers to tailor their lesson plans to unfair testing practices. In this situation everyone is loses and the cracks start forming…
I was an English tutor all through my undergrad years both for the University of Cincinnati as well as though a private for-profit organization. As far as you know, I trained the English tutor that taught your child to write adequately. I volunteer because I am passionate about this issue and because I am good at what I do. I guarantee that my education surpasses yours as does my knowledge and experience.
In regards to your personal situation, perhaps your child learns slower than the average student and needed someone to walk him through the process in a different manner. It doesn’t really matter--the point is--your child learned OVER YEARS certain skills and needed help making sense out of what he / she learned and the public school system that he / she was enrolled in didn’t have the means to offer your the child support he or she needed… WHY?!?!?
That is the question you should be asking…
Perhaps because the teachers were too worried abut aligning their lesson plan to the testing standards that they didn’t have the time to personally mentor your child???? If this is the case--again--it is your responsibility as a taxpayer and a parent to ask WHY????
When you start asking questions and stop taking the easy way out by pointing you finger and blaming the closest target, you will realize the problem generally isn’t what you originally thought it was.
In this case--it is certainly NOT the teachers!