Kristen Fragnoli The
standards movement is sweeping the United States. From conservatives to
liberals, so called ‘higher standards’ are viewed as the answer to many
of our country’s most urgent questions about the quality of education.Within
New York State, the Board of Regents determined standards to be coupled
with mandated state assessments, starting as low as 4th grade.These
high stakes tests, as a rider to higher standards, have caused deep reservations
among some educators, parents, and students. The
movement for statewide testing has been a mixed blessing.The
statewide tests have been used as educational report cards to allow policymakers
and the public to see how the schools are doing.Many
believe that the demand for testing and accountability has increased measure-driven
instruction.Tests have been composed
mostly of multiple choice questions, which cannot assess a student’s ability
to come up with his or her own answers.Many
believe that test scores are being used inappropriately, that many tests
are not accurately measuring student progress, and that standardized tests
damage school instructional qualities (A Guide to Testing Reform in New
York, 1990). Within
New York State the Department of Education has mandated that students must
take a series of assessments throughout their elementary school years.In
fourth grade, students are required to take language arts assessment, science
assessment and math assessment.In
fifth grade, students will be required to take a new social studies assessment
that will include third grade and fourth grade curriculum.These
tests are considered to be high-stakes tests since they are associated
with important consequences for examinees and scores that are seen as reflections
of instructional quality.The stakes
vary depending on the context in which the testing takes place.For
New York students, test results are used in a variety of ways: grade promotion,
summer school, teacher evaluation, district evaluation, academic intervention
services, and allocation of funds.With
so much riding on how New York State students perform on these state assessments,
teachers are pressured into guaranteeing high scoring students.In
many districts, raising test scores has become the single most important
indicator of school improvement.As
a result, teachers and administrators feel enormous pressure to ensure
that test scores go up. This
pressure plays out in the classroom in a variety of ways. Teachers feel
pressure to teach to the test and cover only the material that will be
tested. This is evident in teachers stopping the introduction of new curricular
instruction early in the year and spending the rest of the school year
reviewing information already taught, in preparation for the test.In
the case of the pending fifth grade social studies test in New York State,
to be administered in the month of November, 40% of the test will concentrate
on third grade curriculum and 60% will draw from the fourth grade curriculum.Consequently,
the teacher will put on hold the new curriculum, to review all third and
fourth grade material, in hopes that the students will excel on the test. Many
educators believe that the testing practices used in the classroom influence
what and how information is being taught, and, consequently, what students
learn.In many cases teachers feel
so much pressure to produce high scores, they use the test as curriculum
and teach not only the content but the format (ex. multiple choice) of
the test. “A
meta-analysis of research on test preparation showed that the effect of
coaching students on items that parallel those on the test had a .23 to
.45 standard deviation effect on the test taken” (Smith and Fey, 2000,
p.339).Teachers can inflate scores
of students up to six months, making steadiest appear half a school year
ahead (Smith and Fey, 2000, p.339).The
question then remains – are the students learning more or learning how
to take a test? This research goes hand in hand with statistics showing
the first go of standardized tests results in low overall achievement scores.By
the second year of administering the assessment scores are starting to
rebound.Take New York States 4th
grade English Language Arts Assessment debut in 1999, more than 50 percent
of the state’s 4th graders were deemed at risk of not graduating
in the year 2007 (Brooks & Brooks, 1999, p.20).By
the second year of testing NYS students and teachers had made miraculous
strides in raising test scores. This
tendency for teachers to center instruction on the form of questions contained
on the mandated test in hopes of guaranteeing high scoring students, can
be tied to teacher professional development which centers on teaching teachers
to teach to the test.This becomes
evident when viewing the NYSCSS annual conference brochure.Thirty-five
sessions offered new assessment material or specifically mentioned DBQ
or primary document analysis material.The
use of primary material or data based questioning can be a very effective
form of assessment and instruction. However, to implement DBQs within a
program solely for students to score higher on a test, and not for students
to see the historical or sociological significance of the material that
is being analyzed, is educational malpractice. Although data based questions
have merit, on the fifth grade NYS assessment, students will only have
to answer one DBQ question, worth 30% of their grade.Consequently,
these same fifth graders will have to answer 50 multiple choice questions,
worth 50% of their grade, thus sending the message to teachers and students
to teach and memorize what is being tested. Knowledge
should not be viewed as an end in itself.This
view of education leaves no time for extending student knowledge by applying
it to the lives of people and their social conditions, proposing solutions
to societal problems, or recognizing responsibility to their community.
It becomes evident with the establishment of high-stakes testing that district
results are more important than the discourse which is necessary to instill
agency within our students in hopes that they can work towards the betterment
of society. Many
believe that despite all of this, tests will provide a system to improve
our schools by measuring them against each other and objective criteria.
However, one must also be aware that the criteria of comparison
may seem objective on the surface, yet these assessments do not
take into consideration the existing differences in race, class and resources.In
addition, one needs to be aware of the Lake Wobegon effect, coined this
by Dr. Hohn Jacob Crannell, when he researched the puzzling reports from
school districts across the country reporting that their students were
above average.Carannell discovered,
“More than 90 percent of the fifteen thousand elementary school districts
and 80 percent of the secondary school districts in the nation reported
scores above the national norm, instead of the expected 50 percent.”He
provided a variety of explanations; students who sit for a norm referenced
standardized test are compared with a norm group.This
norm group is tested cold without any preparation on test questions.This
means that the school district may have scored higher than the norm group,
but not necessarily higher than the average of all students taking the
test (Smith and Fey, 2000, p.339). Education
which is based on test score comparison and promotes a learning environment
dependent on test prep packages sold by textbook companies, that does not
allow for teacher input, creativity or student interest cannot bridge the
gap between real life and learning. Just as research has shown that children
learn by trial and error, we as educators have to be willing to take chances
and break away from the existing parameters and styles to try out new methods
and content.We need to be willing
to let the students run with an idea or question and not be halted by the
standards or high-stakes testing. This
new view encourages teaching methods, such as, interdisciplinary approaches,
which will ease the pressure of covering large bodies of information.It
takes the onerous off the almighty test and allows children to be self-initiating
and self-evaluating in their own learning process.The
ability for a child to experience personal meaning in the learning process
is much more valuable than the accumulation of facts. Educators
must offer students a chance to demonstrate that they possess sophisticated
knowledge and understanding that go beyond their skills of reading and
writing and center on the child’s uniqueness and life experiences. It is
through these life experiences, their situatedness, that one needs to assist
children to view the world with their eyes, heart and mind open.Dewey
wrote, “The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous
formation through choice of action (Greene, 1995, p. 177).” Incorporating
material that relates to different students’ situatedness would empower
them in a variety of ways.This
is enforced by the belief that they get to know not just about the family
they were born into, but about their extended identity as well: who they
are, what their place in the world is, and what they can claim as their
personal cultural heritage.Currently,
students who are in much need of capturing and rejoicing in their identities
are taught rote factual information, which kills their creativity and creates
passive learners.This has resulted
in schools that reinforce the separation of curriculum from the child’s
life experience.The challenge for
the teacher, then, lies in deciding what aspects of important content match
up with elements of students’ lives.The
most important way of personalizing education lies in the connection students
make with their own families and experiences. In this way students will
be able to critically question, continually discover new meanings, and
to feel comfortable in acting creatively. The
basic theory justifying such tests- that a student can demonstrate the
knowledge of a discipline by completing a multiple-choice test - has little
support.If researchers, educators,
and parents find fault in the premise behind high stakes testing, and its
costs are so severe, then why are states across the country accelerating
the creation, administration, and value placed on test scores? Tests have
become the chosen means in the evaluation of students and school districts
because they are cost effective and the general public believes schools
and students should be accountable for outcomes as measured by tests.In
this way tests can be regarded as vehicles for advancing political ambitions
and unstated ideological ends. This quick, cheap, and ineffective plan
for accountably has stolen the limelight from other issues in education
– what is being taught, what is not being taught, and what are the political
motives behind these decisions? Teachers
are handed the New York State standards and are expected to teach from
them.To insure teacher compliance,
these standards are followed up with a series of high stakes tests.Many
educators have jumped upon the standards train while it was leaving the
station, before reflectively viewing where this train would lead the institution
of education.Teachers and local
communities have lost their ability to view curriculum and assessment according
to and for the sake of their unique student population.This
crucial role of education has been usurped by politicians that promote
the beliefs and policies that the same curriculum for all is equal and
that a test score can measure true assessment of learning.To
actually succeed in changing the structure of education this hegemony has
to be altered.The whole society
has to view the purpose of education in a different light.As
millions of elementary students across the country sit down to take a series
of state mandated assessments, we as parents, educators and community members
need to raise ideological concerns about the control of knowledge and its
social consequences. Works
Cited FairTest,
and NYPIRC, Standardized Tests and Our Children: A Guide to Testing
Reform in New York, 1990.
Lee
Smith, Mary lee, Fey, Patricia, “Validity and Accountability in High-Stakes
Testing,” Journal of Teacher Education 51 (2000): 5, 334-343.
Brooks,
Martin, Brooks, Jacqueline, “The Courage To Be Constructivist,” Educational
Leadership 57 (1999): 3, 18-24.
Greene,
Maxine.Releasing the Imagination.San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995.
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