“I’m thankful Case 21 testing is over.”
Every night before we eat dinner we hold hands and say our “thank yous.” The only rule is that we can’t say anything about getting material things. Last night Deal said, without hesitation, that the one thing he plucked from his day to be thankful for was the fact that testing was over. And then he groaned and sighed. In contrast, Bird, who is in fifth grade at a different school, said, “I am thankful we had science lab today.” He went on to tell us about science class, and I swear we have reached the point in our lives that my son is smarter than I am. I’ve always said that the turning point in education was when my sons started coming home from school clean. Test prep doesn’t do much to get the kids digging into anything substantive, literally or figuratively. Let me interject here that Deal has a fabulous teacher (a finalist for our county’s Teacher of the Year!). I cannot sing her accolades loudly enough. She is creative and energetic and inspires the kids to be curious and imaginative. She is a master at differentiation and sparks greatness in all her kids. She is a gem. Truly. But she has to work within the confines of a system. A system that requires her to test and test and test. It’s no joke when teachers say they test more than they teach.
Take the Case 21 for example.
“CASE Assessments
Teachers want and need immediate feedback on student skills to ensure that they are ready for testing. That’s one of the benefits of CASE Assessments. Teachers can give the benchmark assessments and access student scores within 48 hours. Teachers can then identify individual student and classroom needs and reinforce or reteach skills.
CASE Assessments provides pre-made or custom benchmarks based on a district or school’s needs. Benchmarks can be given at six or nine week intervals. Other features include:
60% of questions measure higher order thinking.
Questions are tightly aligned with state standards.
Content vocabulary is appropriate for the subject/level.
Tests are aligned to district guides or pacing guides recommended by CASE Assessments.
Format and question stems mirror state tests.”
I had always given some slack to the Case 21 battery of tests. I figured they were real assessments to gauge students’ learning and allow the teacher to tailor instruction accordingly. That last bullet point up there makes me wince. Apparently the Case 21 measures how well a student will do on end of grade (EOG) tests. This isn’t actually focused on LEARNING and THINKING as much as it’s about TESTING. I’ve been duped.
Every morning when we walk to school there is a parade of children walking through the neighborhood. They come in various sizes, often toting bags seemingly bigger than they are. The children all look endearingly like they got dressed on their own and are in various states of bed head. They share a childlike loveliness that embodies equal parts joy and wonder. This week I noticed there were children dragging their feet, my own son included. Deal usually hurries off to school, careening up the hill much faster than my coffeeless self can muster. On this day children were murmuring and complaining about yet another barrage of testing that has blackened their week. They waffle between feeling nervous and bored and just flat out irritated that all this testing gets in the way of fun. It’s been the talk of the playground after school, among parents and students alike. When students are testing they are not learning. When teachers are testing they are not teaching. Help me understand why this is OK.
I firmly believe that learning and fun are not mutually exclusive.
My sons generally like school. They like learning. They thrive on engaging their imagination and curiosity. They are questioners to a fault. Bird and Deal enjoy being challenged and will choose the harder math homework over the easier choice every time. It’s a sentiment I hope my sons don’t lose. The elementary years are pivotal in teeing up a lifetime love of learning for our children. Sadly, I’ve seen this interest in school wane over the years. My sons particularly struggled when their school whittled down the rich electives list to just four and took away specials (art, music, PE). I don’t think Bird recovered from that loss and struggled to feel enriched without those elective classes. I hear from friends over and over again how their children unleash a cacophony of “I hate school!” and “School is so boooorring!” They roll their eyes and stomp their feet petulantly about all the testing and push to learn content “because it’s going to be on the test.” Education today is testing students, teachers, and parents in ways that a #2 pencil can’t capture.
Standardized testing is sucking the life out of our children. Fine teachers are leaving the profession, citing the over emphasis on testing (and the punitive measures tied to the tests) as the reason. Find me an educator, a student, or a parent who values standardized testing. And note that assessment and high stakes testing are not synonymous. Seriously, find me someone who thinks this is a good idea. Clarification: find me someone who thinks this is a good idea who doesn’t stand to profit from it. A middle school principal recently wrote about his take on the testing monster. He says, “What can you learn about the things that really matter to students and parents at my school by looking at my students’ standardized test scores? Nothing.”
The resistance to high stakes standardized testing is swelling. New York set the pace for the rest of us to follow. After Pamela Grundy and I wrote an oped for the local paper, I heard from teachers near and far. The general sentiment was congratulatory, with fist bumping and high fives. One high school teacher said the whole staff applauded our choice to refuse the test and they wished every parent would do so. One teacher said she wished she could opt out her whole class. Yet another teacher said the tests are a waste of time and detract from learning.
I get emails almost daily from people asking me to be their voice in this testing madness. I think the general perception is a) I have a big mouth, b) I ruffle enough feathers and don’t have anything to lose, and c) I have a platform, so they might as well leverage me without taking a risk themselves. But advocacy and grassroots movements don’t work this way. I get messages from people applauding our stance but unwillingness to follow suit. Is it cowardice? Is it fear? What is stopping parents from opting out when they, and their children, know the detrimental effects of too much high stakes testing? Do people not understand that the tests mean nothing? My voice alone is weak; I cannot amplify the voices of all those other parents and teachers and students who want to stop the testing madness. I urge you all to get involved in this and fight for what’s right for our children. The profits over pupils mentality that drives the testing will ultimately be the downfall of public education. My voice alone will not carry us.
Write to your legislators. This is NOT a partisan issue. Now how many things can we say that about these days?
Here are the ranking members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee (HELP).
Senator Tom Harkin
Chairman, HELP Committee
202-224-3254; Fax: 202-224-9369
Senator Barbara Mikulski
Sr. Member, HELP Committee
202-224-4654; DC Fax: 202-224-8858
Senator Patty Murray
Sr. Member, HELP Committee
202-224-2621; Toll Free – 866-481-9186; Fax: 202-224-0238
Opt out of testing/refuse the test. Find 12 reasons to opt out right here.
Write to your principal and teachers.
Speak out at school board meetings. School boards can (re)act based on parent concerns and petitions.
Write to your state board of education.
Write letters to the editor and opeds (see ours here).
Talk to your PTA advocacy committee.
Talk to fellow parents and friends.
Sign up for the FairTest newsletter to read about the opt out movement from around the country.
Check out resources at United Opt Out and Mecklenberg Acts.
Sign the petition to end the testing madness.
Request Congressional hearings on the overuse and abuse of testing in our schools.
Lastly, it warrants some deeper digging to uncover the true connection to high stakes test participation and scores to school funding. Is this yet another tactic the “system” employs to coerce us into this Medusa’s tangle of testing? According to NY Allies for Public Education, a school district does NOT lose funding if there is less than 95% participation on state tests. I’d like to hear the real answer to this for my state of North Carolina.
So tell me, are you in? How will you lend your voice and actions to this movement to protect our children and public education?
Tomorrow I call the principal and opt her out.
I opted out my 6th grader in Utah today. My 4th grader homeschools and my 2nd grader is too young for the SAGE test-it is for 3rd grade and up. I agree that we have become so focused on tests that we are missing the forests for the trees. It frustrates me that we are so consumed with data. Schools here can administer the SAGE 3 times a year (our 6th grader’s teacher set aside 7 days for the test-while I know that they are not spending the full day testing, it creates a lot of stress). Add in their reading assessments 3 times a year, pre- and post-tests for each chapter unit and we easily lose a full month of school just to test. I want to get back to focusing on phenomenal teaching and not testing my child as much as we can. School should be about the joy of learning, not stressing about tests. And here in Utah, the SAGE scores are tied to teacher evaluations as well as school grading. And if you choose to opt out your child, they are automatically given a score of 1 out of 4, showing that they are non-proficient.
Very well said. This is the second year I have opted my kids out of state tests in Pennsylvania, with no repercussions whatsoever — in fact teachers and administrators have told me they support what I’m doing. We need to keep speaking out and pushing educators to speak out too, as they finally did in NY when their jobs were on the line. If teachers are too afraid to speak out then we need to ask administrators, and school boards. I think many parents are afraid to challenge the schools — don’t we all want to believe that the schools are doing what’s best for our kids? — and don’t realize how bad it’s gotten — how much of the school year is now devoted to testing and test prep and how much has been lost.