Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Statewide Testing: System Failure

This week our school is engaged in that beloved educational traditional: high stakes testing. This is the third state I've taught in so I have a small amount of perspective on what constitutes rational testing procedures. The procedures in Alaska, in my experience, are utterly irrational.
This week, all students from 3rd through 12th grade will be tested. (Tenth graders and higher are exempt if they have already passed their high school equivalency test in previous years. Otherwise, they keep taking that test until they pass.) Tuesday is reading, Wednesday is writing, Thursday is math. Fourth, eighth and tenth graders also take the science exam given on Friday. Right away one can see this is problematic. Cramming all of the high stakes testing into one week doesn't provide the students with the best chance of passing or even demonstrating what they have learned.

The tests are not timed but the students are expected to keep working on the day's test until they finish it. You have to apply to the state department of education in order for a student to be allowed to work on a test over multiple days. Students take any where from 2 to 6 hours to finish their tests. I don't think you can reasonably ask any student to work on a test for more than a couple of hours and expect their best work from them.

The instructions that accompany the test require that no one leaves the testing room until all students in the room have finished the test. If we need a bathroom break, we all take the break together in silence with one person entering the bathroom at a time. I'm supposed to lock the room to secure the tests while we're away. In the morning when I get to work I have to sign out the tests and when I return them the principal signs them back in then locks them in the safe. So test security is important to the test makers and this is good. However, all of the tests are in one book. This means that on day #1 a student could theoretically look up the math test questions then spend the next two days reviewing the necessary math. The most vigilant test proctor wouldn't catch this because no one inspects the test page numbers that a student is working on. I don't think this happened at all in my room but it could have.
In sum: 3 or 4 tests in one week, the expectation to work on the same test until completion in one day, one shot to pass each year = fail.

I didn't like the testing scenario in New York when I was there but at least the tests were spread out over a couple of days so that you could maximize the amount of concentration you got from a student. Additionally, the tests in different subjects were spread throughout the year so you didn't have one miserable week in which everyone experiences testing fatigue and wished we could have a regular school day.

Oregon has a much more reasonable testing schedule in my experience. First, all testing was computer based (with paper and pencil tests an option for all). No tests get lost, no worries about security and instant results for reading, writing and science. Also, the tests were truly untimed. You could take more than a week on a single test in order to work on the it a little bit each day. This was a boon for my students who were quick to be frustrated, had short attention spans and/or had experienced a lot of failure at school. (I taught in a program for students with behavior disorders.) Finally, you had multiple chances to take the test each year. If you passed, you were done. If you didn't, you could try again a couple of months later. The best results were kept from all of your attempts and it was easy to track growth or regression.

Conclusion: My experience with testing in Alaska leads me to determine that this is an example of epic failure when better options are at hand.

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