Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

I’ve written several blog posts over the years decrying the over-reliance on standardized tests ant describing their flaws. This editorial from the Pittsburgh Tribune touches all of the bases. Its short enough that I am printing it in it’s entirety and inserting my comments in blue italics.

Every year, Pennsylvania kids face a battery of tests meant to determine just how well they have been educated in a variety of topics. This has been going on since at least the late 1960s!

All of the students from third grade through eighth grade take annual exams in math. They are tested on their reading comprehension and their writing skills. In fourth and eighth grades, science proficiency is measured. What, exactly, is “science proficiency?” Who knows?… but I foresee “civics proficiency” in PAs future…. 

High school students are similarly measured with the Keystone exams in algebra, literature and biology. “similarly measured” means that their scores are put onto a bell curve and an arbitrary cut score is assigned. Presumably if your score is above the cut you have achieved sufficient mastery to progress… 

And in the very best of years, the tests are unpopular. They are stressful for many educators and kids alike. They put a year’s worth of pressure on a week of questions. Good turn of phrase! 

They set up the false equivalency of progress or regression, since this year’s third-grade numbers have nothing to do with last year’s numbers that measured a completely different class of students with different strengths, weaknesses and challenges. By the same token, measuring last year’s third-graders against their progress in fourth grade says nothing, as they are learning entirely different material from different teachers — assuming they are, in fact, the same students and no one moved or was otherwise shuffled. All of this is true for ALL standardized tests… including those that were supposedly going to be used to determine if teachers “Added Value”… BTW, the key phrase in this paragraph is the last one: assuming they are, in fact, the same students and no one moved or was otherwise shuffled… every district I’ve worked in has experienced the reality that schools with the highest degree of transience had the lowest scores… moving is an Adverse Childhood Experience, which might explain why this is the case…

So of course, the tests will be given in 2021. Maddeningly… and contrary to promises the President made to teachers, they will be… 

While the 2020 tests were canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, questions had remained about the 2021 testing. The state powered on with preparation, but the possibility remained that the federal government — which requires them as a national yardstick — would waive them.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education announced that would not happen. Maddeningly… and contrary to promises the President made to teachers, this WAS announced…

While flexibility is being offered, Acting Assistant Secretary Ian Rosenblum said schools need to know in what areas kids were left behind and where they need the most help. Parents need that data, too, he said. So here’s what the data will show: kids who had no access to the internet throughout the pandemic will score lower than those who did… THERE! I just saved the government billions of dollars! 

Schools and parents and students do need to assess that. But is the cudgel of standardized testing the best way to do so? NO!!!

Many colleges, including the big dogs such as Harvard, are backing away from standardized test data, making SAT and ACT scores optional instead of mandatory. The College Board, which administers the SAT, supports this. What do these groups know? I mean they only administer the very tests that are being implemented! Oh… and they stand to profit if tests are given? Why would a profit-making group support the abandonment of testing during a pandemic? Because they know that the results will be worthless! 

On a normal test week, administrators urge parents to make sure that kids get a good night’s sleep and minimize stress. They encourage a healthy breakfast because studies have shown hungry kids don’t test well.

Kids are stressed. Some families are facing eviction or housing issues. Many more are facing an epic hunger crisis that is stretching food banks to their limits. Even in families that have managed to weather the pandemic fairly well, learning has been disrupted in ways large and small, and in degrees hard to measure.

This does not seem like the formula for accurately measuring what a kid does or doesn’t know. To which I can only add: AMEN!