The trouble with testing...

As some may have noticed by yesterday's tweet:  "I'm so excited...my 2nd grader will be working on test taking skills and bubble sheets this week /sarcasm/" 

 Some rights reserved by Jason Seliskar

I am less than thrilled with the emphasis that we currently place on standardized testing.  As I learned when I got home, my daughter is also less than pleased.  She is very upset that she will now miss a whole week of team time (which she really enjoys as it includes a great deal of creative work) in favor of test prep.  I think her statement to me nicely sums it up, "she told us how to fill in the bubbles and we practiced, isn't that enough?"

If only it were that simple (or maybe it is and I just have it wrong).


Teaching is a negotiation between teachers and students.  Teachers do all they can to engage children in content that may or may not be interesting to children.  This is the true challenge in teaching, helping students to understand content in meaningful and productive ways.  I am a fan of Daniel Pink's books (particularly A Whole New Mind and Drive) likely because when you read the two you see the inherent contradictions in what we expect from children, how we prepare them, and how we assess them.  Pink talks about the future belonging to the "creative class" because the world is becoming more complex.  It is impossible to  know everything and therefore it is how we use knowledge to solve problems that will be the most valuable skills.  In Drive he expands on this notion by talking about the differences between algorithmic (one correct solution) and heuristic thinking (multiple solutions).  Clearly heuristic thinking is more motivating (it encompasses creative thinking and problem solving), but algorithmic thinking is what we assess...


So every year around this time a usual chain of events occurs...


Teachers are pressured to ensure their students perform well on tests - teachers pressure students (knowingly or unknowingly) -  students lose valuable class time (along with anxiety, sleep, etc) preparing for a test which may or may not be a truly accurate reflection of what they know and can do.  And (if Daniel Pink is right) assesses them on a set of skills that will eventually be irrelevant or obsolete.

Why NCLB inhibits STEM education

There is no denying that we need to better prepare students for careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and to better prepare those who enter other fields for a more technologically complex world.  However, with all of the talk of "school reform", it seems that the more things change the more they stay the same.  For example, I am yet to hear of anyone at the Federal level call for more systematic NCLB reform.  The rhetoric is focused solely on reauthorization, with changes (but with the same or similar accountability model).  With continued calls to tie this accountability to school funding http://bit.ly/qoH8oU and the Education Secretary's Blueprint for Reform, it would appear that any rewrite will look much the same as our current broken legislation.  In a recent report released by the National Research Council (see below), NCLB impact is clearly seen 1) Elementary schools reported spending an average of 178 minutes per week on science, 323 minutes on math, and 3) 503 minutes on English/language arts.  2) In California, 80% of k-5th grade teachers who are responsible for teaching science reported spending 60 minutes or less per week and 16% spent no time at all.  And it was noted that this survey may, in fact, over-estimate the time spent on science since those who responded are more likely to be engaged in science instruction.  I am certainly not suggesting that math and English/language arts are not important, but what I am calling for is a more balanced approach.  We can call on schools to produce more students ready for STEM careers, but until we show that we truly value science, technology, and engineering we are not going to see any systemic changes.

National Research Council.  (2011).  Successful k-12 STEM Education: Identifying Effective Approaches in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.  Committee on Highly Successful Science Programs for k-12 Science Education.  Board on Science Education and Board on Testing and Assessment, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education.  Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Say what?

Sometimes I just don't get it. Once again Secretary Duncan makes a statement that just doesn't match something he stated earlier (maybe, if he would have had more standardized tests in school he would see how his logic just doesn't seem to make sense!).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chicagogeek/4333114156/sizes/l/

"U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will talk about the importance of arts instruction and its impact on learning ..."

-ED.gov

Say what? Secretary Duncan will talk about the importance of the arts in instruction! This, from the guy who said "proposed incentive plans must "use fair and transparent evaluations based on multiple measures including student growth." in Newsweek and didn't have a problem with the LA Times publishing teacher names and ranking them based on standardized test scores.

but hey, he's only enforcing the Administration's agenda, right?

"Now that Obama lives in the White House, he seems to have developed a certain fondess for some of the key concepts of NCLB that essentially doomed it to fail: the high-stakes standardized testing regime, the punishment for the lowest-achieving schools, the arbitrary deadlines for success."

-Washington Post

I tweeted this out a week or so ago and asked how the US Dept. of Education would assess the "effectiveness" of art teachers in this model? The best response "How well the bubbles are colored in!"

It's the Least Wonderful Time of the Year : (

Aaaahhh!  It seems spring has arrived here in North Carolina and that can only mean one thing for public school kids all over the state...no not spring break....End of Grade Testing!!

Thanks to NCLB, we are forcing creativity and critical thinking right out of our classrooms in favor of discrete pieces of disconnected knowledge or "choosing the best answer" (as though there's only one plausible answer).

Our nation, to a large degree, is obsessed with the standardized test, yet I am still unable to locate a job where you are asked to fill in a bubble sheet with the correct answer to a problem.  You expect this obsession from the so-called "reformers" (Bill Gates, etc.), most of whom neither attended nor worked in a public school (yet know all of the solutions to the problems).  But, what is truly disheartening is when our own Secretary of Education, Senators, and even the President himself extol the virtues and value of standardized test scores.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hugo90/5422793573/

What do these tests really tell us?  Are they really an accurate representation of what a child has learned over the course of a year?  Maybe.  Can their performance be solely attributed to the work of their teacher or school?  Definitely not.  We treat children as though they are products assembled in schools by teachers, but in reality children are complex, social beings, with a wide range of talents, motivations, abilities, and experiences.  All of these factors must be considered when we look at the education of children.  Shouldn't be be expected to educate the whole child?

What has made America unique as a nation has always been our ability to innovate and it has been through innovation and creativity that we as a nation have ensured our status as the strongest, most agile economy.  By limiting what (Reading/Writing & Math) and how our children learn (drill and practice, rote memorization) to the exclusion other topics (arts, science, social studies) and strategies (collaborative learning, inquiry based learning) we are developing a generation of children who are not taught the value of creativity, innovation, and problem solving.

A standardized test is nothing more than a snapshot in time of what a child might or might not know.  My issue is not with testing per se, it is with all of the ancillary issues that come with the testing.  We talk at length about the value of time in schools.  Instructional time, the length of the school day and school year, time lost due to distractions, etc.,  but we never talk about lost instructional time due to test prep!  In some instances we are losing as much as a month in preparation for testing.  We place entirely too much time and emphasis on testing.

To make matters worse we have elected (and appointed) officials calling for higher stakes testing.  Senator Lieberman wants to tie federal dollars to teacher evaluation that is based predominantly on student test scores (http://www.ctmirror.org/story/11847/liebermanteacherevalutions) and both Secretary Duncan and President Obama calling for a greater emphasis on "teacher effectiveness" as measured by student test score gains (I wonder if President Obama completed a multiple choice quiz before deciding to commit the US military to Libya or if a multiple choice test he took in school helped him arrive at his decision).


As far as I can tell we are the only nation who is this test obsessed (with the highest achieving nations following a very different model, Finland, Singapore).  The highest achieving nations respect their teachers as professionals and pay them accordingly.  This respect for professionalism includes additional planning and collaboration time.  Time which can be used to develop authentic assessments, which more accurately portray what a students know and can do. 


Until we decide to elevate the status of the profession in a similar fashion we are likely to remain on the same track...I just hope there's a light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a train coming the other way.

It's little wonder that the average teacher leaves the profession after just 3 short years...would you stay?

First Day of the New Blog

A New Day

So, I've decided that it is time for me to "go all in".  I have either taught public school or been involved in the preparation of public school teachers for 15 years now and think the time has come for me to dedicate some time and energy to voicing my opinions to those outside of my family.

On Friday, I participated in a local newspaper interview with a faculty member in my college about the links between poverty and education.  Overall, we both felt really good about the outcome (but we'll have to wait until the article appears before making a final decision).  How fitting then to log into my Twitter account and see this quote by Joel Klein (Former NYC Schools Chancellor)  " They have it backwards.  We're never going to fix poverty until we fix education".  

My first thought was exactly....then I realized my mistake...

This is not and if-then equation!!!  These issues are related, but "fixing" education will not fix poverty,  poverty is much too complex an issue, there are both systemic and systematic factors that contribute to poverty.  The United States has the highest rates for childhood poverty in the industrialized world (23% of children in 2007).  It is a question of basic needs, if you live in poverty and can not have your basic needs met (food, shelter, safety) it is terribly difficult to learn.

I'm sure it's much easier to to be glib about the relationship between poverty and education when you leave a position that pays $250,000 (http://nymag.com/guides/salary/14497/index5.html) for one that pays $2 million (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-04/news-corp-s-klein-gets-2-million-a-year-salary-1-million-signing-bonus.html).