"....As the business community delves into the complexities of education, they may want to look a little more deeply at the tests that are driving everything in education.
Hearing “Lisa” discuss character development in a literature discussion with her peers or reading her annotated notes is far more revealing than how she answered the question, “Who is the main character in this paragraph?”
A: Dick
B: Sally
C: Rover
D: All of the above
Reviewing questions that “Mike” generated on his own from a science experiment on volume tells much more about his understanding than how he answered question number thirteen on the state assessment.
In real life, the questions aren’t given to us. The most important part of learning is knowing what questions to ask.
What we learned from the recently released CSAP scores was the same thing we learned from the first tests: That students who have more opportunity and resources do better than students who do not. Socio-economic-status is the number one correlating factor to test scores.
We also learned that high-stakes testing does not better prepare our children for college. Remediation rates are three times higher than when No Child Left Behind was signed by Congress.
The class of 2011 — the first class to graduate under high-stakes testing — showed an 11 percent increase from the previous year in the need for college remediation, according to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education.
It is simple, really. The students who have been educated under the umbrella of high-stakes testing did not get the opportunity to fall in love with books or to develop their own writing style and voice. They were too busy memorizing testing terminology and mastering test-taking strategies to engage in serious reading or writing on interesting concepts that have meaning in their own lives.
State assessments did not close the achievement gap as promised. Instead, we traded educational opportunity for data spreadsheets, and now there are twice as many children in poverty. The number of homeless schoolchildren in this state has more than tripled in the past 10 years — from 7,000 to more than 23,300 students last school year.
Meanwhile, the majority of our elected representatives continue to insist that learning can be forced on students with the “right” test. They argue that teachers will do better if their evaluations are tied to the tests, as if educators care more about their own ratings than they do about the kids they serve day in and day out.
While Colorado spends another year choking on the data, classrooms grow larger and teachers and school counselors become fewer. Test prep and remediation courses have replaced music, art and PE, after-school programs, and field trips. Still we wonder why kids will not stay in school and more are diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Students are now being tested in preschool and kindergarten, despite all evidence that standardized tests in early grades is developmentally inappropriate.
Now, the Colorado state Board of Education has adopted the Common Core, yet another set of standards now being implemented in schools where some haven’t been able to afford new text books for decades.
Standardized tests are not an accurate measure of what students and teachers can do. Even if they were, the purpose of education is not to measure human capabilities, the purpose is to advance them. Millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on testing reforms that have diverted our time, attention and resources away from addressing the opportunity gap and infusing innovation.
Parents do not need school performance ratings based on a test; they need schools that are safe, happy, holistic, and promote personal, real learning. Teachers do not need a test to tell them how they or their students are performing; they need tools, resources and time.
And business does not need future employees who are experts at shading bubbles.
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