Brilliant or Insane?: standardized testing

Monday, February 17, 2014

Measure me by the unwritten curriculum -- not my test scores

By Reed Gillespie

via: gemnyc.org

As a lifelong educator, I’d like to believe that all teachers and administrators understand that we can’t use standardized test scores to measure teacher effectiveness. So, I was shocked the other day when an educator, one I think highly of, used test scores to compare two teachers’ effectiveness.

All of teacher A’s students passed the standardized test. Teacher B’s students didn’t fair as well, but teacher B’s classes were filled with special education students, rule breakers and fence-riders (those students who are easily swayed by their peers).

As a teacher, I loved teaching the most challenging students, so I was taken aback by this educator’s dubious claim. If he were to look at my standardized test scores, would he think any less of me as a teacher?

When you teach challenging students, the state-mandated curriculum must not be ignored, but often it should take a back seat to the unwritten curriculum. Comparatively, the standard curriculum is easy to teach. If test scores were my primary concern, when a student misbehaved, I could have simply stated, “John, do the work or get a referral.” I then could return to teaching the mandated curriculum. In that scenario, my students’ test scores may have been higher.

In addition to curriculum, though, we need to teach life skills, to build trusting relationships with all students and to help students learn from their errors (both academic and behavioral).

Teaching the unwritten curriculum includes no absolutes. Every decision is complex and impacts heavily on all learners. Instead of focusing solely on test scores, educators must also teach with empathy and work diligently to never leave a student behind.

Test scores cannot measure these attributes. Teacher effectiveness can only be marginally reflected in the scores of our students.

So, when evaluating my worthiness as a teacher, please, measure me by the unwritten curriculum, not my test scores.

Reed Gillespie writes about education for Brilliant or Insane. Learn more about Reed on our Team page. Follow Reed on Twitter here.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

The domino effect of education standardization

by Reed Gillespie

Fourteen years ago, after five wonderful years as a teacher, everything imploded during the sixth year. The same administrators, who once encouraged risk-taking and personal growth, became dictatorial and over-controlling. Instead of working together, we now competed and fought for control.

via: mnn.com

What torpedoed us? Virginia's Standards of Learning.

So, I abandoned the sinking ship. I wasn’t alone. Seven other teachers (a significant number as this was a very small school) jumped to other jobs. One of the other departing teachers expressed the feelings of all of us, “I feel like I’m just a cog in the machine. Easily replaceable.”

In the blink of an eye, everything changed with the new standards.

Administrators became manipulative and domineering. Teacher autonomy went out the window. We were told, “If it’s not mentioned in the Standard of Learning Framework, you won’t be teaching it.”

When observing classes, administrators sat with the standards in hand. I got chastised for talking about Winston Churchill and the Battle of Britain in my World History class (remarkably at the time this wasn’t included in the framework, but it has since been added). A peer was raked over the coals at a school board meeting for having poor SOL scores (Virginia’s End of Course Tests) despite his students scoring well above the state average.

A bad trend

Sadly, my experiences are not unique. Today far too many teachers feel the same way I did 14 years ago. Essentially, one knee-jerk reaction led to another in a domino falling-like series of transgressions.

No Child Left Behind led state governments to increase “accountability.” Pressured school districts exerted control on school administrators who passed it on to the teachers. Constantly being reminded, “It’s your job to make sure your students perform to these high standards,” led teachers to increase their control over students. So, reluctantly, we taught to the test.

With autonomy destroyed, many educators’ enthusiasm and excitement for teaching waned. Lectures became commonplace. Teachers bypassed labs and projects that engaged students and instead dispensed review worksheets to drill in the facts.

The pressure to produce results undermined teachers. The burden of standardized test results backfired as student learning suffered. Teachers became more controlling despite knowing that students need the opposite—teachers who nurture, support and engage students.

Fortunately, many states, including Virginia, are looking at loosening the standardization grip. Reform can’t come soon enough.

Reed Gillespie writes about education for Brilliant or Insane. Learn more about Reed on the Our Team page. Follow Reed on Twitter here.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Did Hawaii start the war against RTTT, NCLB?

Teachers in Hawaii served a crushing blow to President Obama's Race to the Top initiative, when 67% of the state's teachers voted against a new contract that would require merit pay, if the state was to earn RTTT money.

Courtesy: Hawaii Tribune-Herald

If a large majority of 9,000 teachers in a state are willing to say no to $75 million in government dollars, because they are so staunchly opposed to being judged on test scores, one must wonder when other states will follow Hawaii's lead.

An even more significant question might be, is this the beginning of the war between educators and politicians that will ultimately strike down No Child Left Behind, putting an end to standardized testing once and for all?

Since NCLB's inception, teachers and researchers nationwide have complained in books, articles and at national conferences that high stakes tests are ineffective in evaluating student performance and, in fact, detract from learning. However, there has not been the solidarity necessary to make a large enough statement to get the attention of education lawmakers and of the Obama administration.

The courageous teachers in Hawaii have made a resounding statement. Perhaps their vote was the first shot fired in a war that has been a long time coming.

Maybe, in addition to saying no to Race to the Top, the teachers in Hawaii were saying good-bye to No Child Left Behind. Maybe they were saying they will no longer stand for high stakes testing. Maybe they were telling President Obama and Arne Duncan that they will not stand for a failing education system. Maybe they were saying that the testing has to stop.

Maybe they were starting a war that every teacher in America needs to join.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Why compete with education in other countries?

I've never understood America's preoccupation with competing globally in education. Why is it so important for our students to outscore students in China or Taiwan on a standardized test? Will it raise my quality of life, if little Johnny's math grade is higher than his Japanese counterpart in the fourth grade?

Education Week's examination of how American education stacks up with education in other countries sums up the issue this way:

"Much of the debate centers on whether the U.S. education system has slipped from a position of dominance, or is holding steady, in areas deemed crucial to economic security, particularly the STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—and so-called 21st-century learning and communications skills."

Let's see if I have this right. If our students' scores on an arbitrary test are substandard, according to some bureaucratic bean counter, the economic security of the entire nation may be in jeopardy. I can't imagine anything more absurd.

I wonder if we were to focus our energies on creating opportunities to collaborate with other countries on best practices just how much better off all of the world's students might be.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Harvard study misses the mark

I have been known to complain about bad or misinterpreted research. Today, I came upon another flawed study, courtesy of education blogger, Joanne Jacobs.

In a post citing a Harvard study on so-called "great teachers," Jacobs reveals that lengthy research by some Harvard educators shows a connection between what the folks at Harvard refer to as "value-added" teaching and going to college and making money, among other things. The study suggests that if students have teachers who are better than average, then these students will make more money than the students who have had bad teachers.

The Harvard study is based on, brace yourself, standardized test results. A "value-added" teacher is one whose students improve their standardized test score from one year to the next. Students in the study are considered successful if they make more money than students who didn't have so-called "value-added" teachers or if the students with "good" teachers went to college or -- my personal favorite -- didn't get pregnant as a teenager.

Am I the only one who thinks this may be the biggest waste of time researchers have ever put into a study?

Friday, December 30, 2011

Big Brother is destroying American education

George Orwell's 1984 is a cautionary tale about a government that polices everything citizens do, including how they think. The term "Big Brother is watching" was popularized by this classic dystopian novel. Big Brother is the party leader, who does everything possible to eliminate individuality.

Recent comments here at ROLE Reversal, on Twitter, Google+ and other articles and blogs got me to thinking that Orwell's Big Brother and our current government may not be so different. One might argue that the notion that we're being controlled by thought police is absurd, but consider the government's role in education and its impact on educators.

The comment below, left on a blog post about the negative effects of homework, is a perfect example of the thought control that our government is creating with standardized testing:

"Sounds good, but my state says we Must finish x amount of concepts in the year, and be prepared for an end of course exam that determines if they graduate. I need every second of class time and the students need practice to get the ideas into long-term memory."

I hear similar complaints daily in my own school, from colleagues scared senseless that their students won't pass the test, subjecting the teachers to all sorts of state-mandated wrath. Don't standardized tests force teachers to behave like thoughtless automatons, handing out practice test worksheets and homework day after day, as they spout "You must pass, you must pass," mantras at their students? Or do they?

Most readers of Orwell thought his novel was, in fact, cautionary and that his plot was far too outlandish to ever come to fruition.

As we gaze into today's classrooms and see one mind-controlled teacher after another, we must wonder if Big Brother isn't alive and well today, controlling the thoughts and actions of teachers and destroying American education and the futures of our children along with it.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

What if educators just said "No" to the test?

I've never known a teacher to say, "Boy, I love standardized tests." Quite the contrary. Most teachers and many administrators oppose everything related to high stakes testing.

Many outspoken educators are not shy about voicing their opinions on the matter. They complain in faculty lounges, at staff meetings or on their blogs that the test undermines everything that is good about teaching and learning. It is unfair to students, who have a years-worth of learning judged in a single 150-minute testing session.

Worst of all, teachers declare, the test makes students hate learning. In spite of all of this, we keep administering this abomination every year.

As our standardized test approached last year, I asked some colleagues why we keep giving it. "What do you mean?" one asked. "We just have to." Again, I asked why.

What if, I suggested, we just say "No?" We band together with voices stentorian and tell the bureaucrats to keep their test, because we don't want it.

Imagine every teacher in your state promising solidarity and saying, "Don't even send the tests, because we will not administer them." What would the government do? What could district leaders do? Fire every teacher in the state?

Maybe, rather than give the decision-makers time to contemplate this possibility, we should just "get sick" the day of the test.

Imagine the statement educators across the country could make, if the tests arrived and there were no teachers to administer them.