With testing season coming to a close (thank goodness!), I have to stop and wonder why we put our students through this. Sure, accountability is the old stand-by reasoning. But how much does it really benefit the kids?
Don’t get me wrong; I see the benefit in standardized tests. They can assist in showing students’ overall growth from year to year, especially in mobile areas where students change schools frequently. Many schools also use the results of these tests to help guide instruction and to place students in classes the following school year.
My issue with standardized tests is the loss of instructional time. We lose time for instruction when we give the tests—for sometimes as long as five days, as with my school’s fourth and eighth graders this year. But we also lose time when teachers teach to the test (and as much as teachers deny it, we all teach to the test to some extent). The kids have to know how to take the test, after all!
Assessment happens in classrooms constantly. Good teachers are up, moving around the classroom, talking to students throughout the day. Assignments and in-class activities are designed to showcase students’ talents and identify weaknesses. What teachers, schools, districts, and state education boards need to do is find a way for these formative assessments to count for something.
Personally, I am not a good multiple-choice test taker. Never have been. When I was a kid, I remember taking the Iowa Basic each year and I never did particularly well on it. But I still made it through a master’s degree as an adult. And, though I may not always show it, I think I’m pretty darn smart. Was the test reliable? Did it really measure where I was academically at the time?
How can we, as educators, help? When will formative assessments count toward a school’s label, instead of one very stressful (for students and teachers alike) series of summative assessments?
