#highstakestesting

Time is a constraint that is common to all teachers (Ritchhart et al.,2011). I do not think that a teacher has to give up thinking time to prepare for testing, because you can prepare for standardized tests while also putting thinking ahead of rote memory exercises. Everyone makes the test the bad guy, but the test is just a representation of the standards which are based on Bloom’s Taxonomy and include both conceptual and metacognitive knowledge. I would argue that the curriculum and standards are at least adequate in most circumstances and the testing process itself, though inconvenient, seems to be improving through the collaboration of Edtech platforms and state education agencies. With the limitations to thinking that multiple choice tests create, the redesigned STAAR test that will begin field testing in the spring of 2022 will contain “new question types that reflect classroom test questions and allow students more ways to show their understanding” (Texas Education Agency, 2022). This willingness for TEA to grow and respond to the current assessment strategies in a typical Texas classroom stands in stark contrast to the punitive nature of the consequences for the losers of the high-stakes testing game. David Hursh states in his book High-stakes Testing and the Decline of Teaching and Learning: The Real Crisis in Education:

“I am not against using standardized exams as one of multiple measures. But, I am against high-stakes standardized tests that are used to punish students, teachers, schools, and school districts and used to misrepresent public schools as failures beyond redemption”        

What students and teachers need is a low-stakes environment that encourages thinking and deep understanding. That can be achieved through annual standardized testing, but less pressure to perform would enable teachers to focus on mastery of thinking skills rather than rapid progression through content. Changining question types and adjusting the presentation of standardized tests can help make them a more reliable measure of performance, but if performance is the basis for loss of funding or labeling a school unsatisfactory then the same “test taking strategy” instruction will overtake thinking strategy instruction. “Ultimately it’s what learners are asked to do with that content that makes it a rich opportunity for learning” (Ritchhart et al.,2011). To get the focus off of the end result of standardized assessment and onto the learning environment and thinking processes is the key to testing and thinking occupying the same space in teaching for understanding. 

Resources

Hursh, D. W. (2008). High-stakes Testing and the Decline of Teaching and Learning: The Real Crisis in Education. United States: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

 Ritchhart, R., Church, M., & Morrison, K. (2011). Making thinking visible. Jossey Bass Wiley.

SAT: here is a test.

MCAT: here is a big test.

STEP 1: here is a big test to decide your future.

STEP 2: Do you have test anxiety yet?

STEP 3: How about that test anxiety?

ITE: You just thought you were through with your test anxiety.

BOARDS: literal definition of test anxiety.

During an Oxfam Hunger Banquet experiential learning workshop I led for my students several years ago, I explained to a group of middle schoolers who were complaining about their lunch options after being relegated to the group that was served just bread, peanut butter and mayonnaise for lunch, that being a “picky” eater was a luxury; you can afford to turn up your nose at unappealing choices because, even though you insist you are “starving”, you know there will be other options as soon as you get home from school that day and you don’t truly have to eat the lunch on the bread you don’t like with the peanut butter brand you don’t recognize.  Options allow us the luxury of choosiness.  Lack thereof means we focus on what will ensure that we take in sufficient calories to allow our bodies and minds to function and don’t fuss about whether this is our favorite peanut butter brand. 

Psychologist Abraham Maslow diagramed a hierarchy of needs in 1943 that illustrates that a person can only begin to think about her preferences or desires after her basic needs have been met.  That same hierarchy evidently applies when considering educational priorities.  In the debate over the value of high stakes testing and the challenges to the metrics highlighted by No Child Left Behind, opinions seem to line up along socio-economic lines.  As cited in a recent LA Times article (http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-pol-schools-poll-20150412-story.html#page=1), a majority of Latino voters, 55%, said mandatory exams improve public education in the state by gauging student progress and providing teachers with vital information. Nearly the same percentage of white voters said such exams are harmful because they force educators to narrow instruction and don't account for different styles of learning. 

Once a family has achieved a certain level of financial success, they have the luxury of worrying about their children's stress levels," said Dan Schnur, head of USC's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics. "For families who haven't yet made it, they see the stress that comes with testing as an acceptable trade-off in order to more precisely measure progress.”  

This distinction may account for some of the appeal of charter schools that target and attract families from financially challenged backgrounds.  Many of those schools emphasize frequent testing to ensure that students are meeting targets and display student grades to motivate lower performers, arguing that meaningful high self esteem will come from accomplishment, not from shielding students from their lack of success or progress.  What parents from far more comfortable socioeconomic status may label as “shaming” students, parents who sow a much harder row may label this practice as holding their students accountable for their failures as much as their successes.  No trophies for participation because that’s just not reality.  

When it comes to education, there are numerous critical issues that need to be addressed in 2014, and these are ten of them.