SBA Testing Starts Today

SBA testing starts today.  My job this year is to make sure the technology is working correctly.  The next three weeks should be hectic.

I've written several posts about testing over the years.  Here are a few of my favorites:

Five Obvious Observations about Standardized Testing

Measurables: Who Did I Help Today?

Another Innovation Designed to Save the World

Some Concerns about Test Scores 

What Are We Measuring?

Despite the recent changes at the federal level, I don't see any of this going away.

Another Use for a 100 Chart

Some solutions arrive at a moment of desperation.

I have been giving the online ELL test this month.  One of the first graders became so stressed he started sobbing and I couldn't convince him to finish.  As anyone who has given the mandated state tests knows, this is not a valid excuse for not completing it.  I wish it were.

We decided to test him alone in the counselor's office, and I brought a chart like the one pictured above.  I put a star on each of the questions he had already answered and the counselor drew lines where he could stop to take a break.  I crossed off the numbers at the bottom, because the test had 95 questions. Each time he answered a question, we checked off the remaining boxes.  He had a visual of how he was progressing and so he finished.

No, I don't think that a 95 question test is developmentally appropriate for first graders.  I wonder what we are doing to our students.  Some days I advocate for my students by trying to change the system.  Other days I advocate for my students, by getting them through it.

If you need a chart like this one, click here.

More Online Testing: English Language Learners

Right now I am administering the annual test that measures how our English Language Learners read, write, listen, and speak in English.  For the first year the test is online.

I am not a technophobe.  I use technology professionally and personally, but I know I think differently when I use paper and pen.  When a pencil breaks, you hand the student a new one.

The test has gone smoothly except for the typical glitches.  When the system crashes or there is an interruption in the internet, we have been able to start back up where we left off...most of the time.

I know the person who designed the log in system was more concerned about security than making it kid-friendly.  Every student has had to scroll through a lot of educational jargon to begin their actual test.

I am concerned about the number of questions: 93-100 for the grades I have tested.  This makes for long testing sessions: 1.5-2.5 hours for even first graders.

I am also concerned with the speaking part.  Students record their voices into the computer.  I have had some of my shy students completely shut down over this.  I don't know how their recordings are turning out.  I'm not supposed to know.

Tomorrow I will begin testing the kindergartners.  Pray for me.

Measurables

If you are reading this, you survived Black Friday.  This is the first year in a long time that I have worked retail the day after Thanksgiving.  I'm taking a year off from teaching to get some perspective on things.  

One of the reasons I became dissatisfied with teaching was the emphasis on test scores.  Teaching had to be data-driven.  We test what we teach and as a result we teach what we test.

What I'm finding out is that happens in the business world as well.  I expected to have sales goals, but I didn't expect to have goals on signing people up for credit, issuing care plans, and remembering to ask people to take our survey at the end of each interaction.  I'm not criticizing the company I work for, because I have learned that every business has these types of goals.  Business is data-driven.  Some much more than others.

I notice that I have a better attitude in both business and educational environments when I focus on the people. "Who did I help today?"  The interactions I have in my store may not bring an immediate sale and all the other measurables.  I'm looking long term.  I want people to want to come back another day when they are ready to make a purchase.

How many times as a teacher have I had a student who struggled with me come back and tell me about their successes?  It may not have shown up on my test scores, but it happened later in the important parts of their lives.  And they came back to tell me because they knew I would want to know.

Five Obvious Observations about Standardized Tests

Last week our local paper did its annual report on the release of state test scores.  They reported such news like some schools scored higher than the state average and some scored lower.  (Really?  I can't imagine that.  Isn't that what average means?)

In keeping up with such spectacular journalism, I want to report my own obvious observations about these tests:

1.  What we test, we teach.

Just type into any search engine the words "test prep."  Go ahead, I'll wait.  Isn't it amazing how much time and energy is spent getting ready for The Test.

2.  What we don't test, gets pushed aside.

I am tired of justifying teaching art, drama, music, etc.  Don't get me started on what we go through to convince an administrator that a field trip is "educationally based."

3.  Important lessons can't be scored this way.

While I want all of my students to read, write, and solve math problems, I want them to care and be creative problem-solvers.  I have yet to find a test that truly tests these skills.

4. Testing is not teaching.

When I am walking around a silent room whispering over and over, "I'm sorry I cannot answer that question,"  I'm not really teaching anything.

5.  Poverty affects test scores.

Poverty also affects some of the other lessons I want to make sure my students learn.  I want them to love to read.  I want them to feel rewarded when they persevere at learning something new.  Most important, I want them to feel that they have options for their lives beyond what they see in their own neighborhoods.

I spent the last fifteen years of my career trying to marginalize the role of test score in my daily practice.  At the end of this year's testing season, I promised my students that we would do all the lessons I love to teach.  Then came the staff meeting where we were strongly encouraged to do some of the interim tests so we could learn how to test better next year.  That was the day I resigned.

Some Concerns about Test Scores

Last spring I read an article called "10 Things the SAT Won't Tell You."

I won't recap the entire article, but I want to share the few that resonated with me, because I feel they affect us in elementary schools.

2.  The richer you are, the better you do.

I work in a school that has fairly wealthy and fairly poor students.  How poverty affects test scores concerns me.

4. We get the answers wrong on our own test.

This is true of most standardized tests.  I don't want to be judged like this.

7.  We're not the best predictor of your college success.

We want our students to be "college and career ready," yet test scores don't really predict this.

10. Your test anxiety may hurt your score.

Having given standardized tests to students as young as first grade, yes, I believe this.  This is not how to show what you know.

I encourage you to read the whole article.

What Are We Measuring?

I subscribe to Seth Godin's blog and in January he wrote a post called Measuring Nothing (with Great Accuracy).  Because we are in the middle of implementing a new teacher evaluation system in our district which must include student growth goals, I could immediately identify.

I can show that my students are learning.  The easiest attributes to measure are not the most important ones, though.  I want my students to persevere when a task is hard and be respectful to adults and other children.  I want to know that they will be successful adults some day.

I don't think this is on the test.