Here We Go Again: Not Really Improving Test Performance
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Common Core State Standards 
03 May, 2012
11 Comments
For years, I’ve told audiences that one of my biggest fantasies (not involving Heidi Klum) was that we would have a different kind of testing and accountability system. In my make-believe world, teachers and principals would never get to see the tests – under penalty of death.
They wouldn’t be allowed within miles of a school on testing days, and they would only be given general information about the results (e.g., “your class was in the bottom quintile of fourth grades in reading”). Telling a teacher the kinds of test questions or about the formatting would be punished severely, too.
In that fantasy, teachers would be expected to try to improve student reading scores by… well, by teaching kids to read without regard to how it might be measured later. I have even mused that it would be neat if the test format changed annually to even discourage teachers from thinking about teaching to a test format.
In some ways, because of common core, my fantasy is coming true (maybe Heidi K. isn’t far behind?).
Principals and teachers aren’t sure what these tests look like right now. The whole system has been reset, and the only sensible solution is… teaching.
And, yet, I am seeing states that are holding back on rolling out the common core until they can see the test formats.
Last week, Cyndie (my wife – yes, she knows all about Heidi and me – surprisingly, she doesn’t seem nervous about it) was contacted by a state department of education trying to see if she had any inside dope on the PARCC test.
This is crazy. We finally have a chance to raise achievement and these test-chasing bozos are working hard to put us back in the ditch. There is no reason to believe that you will make appreciable or reliable gains teaching kids to reply to certain kinds of test questions or to particular test formats (you can look it up). The people who push such plans know very little about education (can they show you the studies of their “successful” test-teaching approaches?). I am very pleased with the unsettled situation in which teachers and principals don’t know how the children’s reading is going to be evaluated; it is a great opportunity for teachers and kids to show what they can really do.
5/4/2012
Great post! I too share your fantasy. The test-prep craze has fascinated and frustrated me. People blame NCLB for creating a test-prep culture, but I believe that is the lack of knowledge of how to improve student achievement, especially for our lowest achieving students, that has created this culture. Improvement in student achievement comes via improved teaching, not knowing the test questions or format and drilling kids on it. That approach may garner short term bumps upwards, but ultimately it's a losing game. My true fantasy is that the Common Core era ushers in an entirely new way of thinking about how our educational system (and our country) view and implement preservice and in-service professional development and support for teachers. Thanks for your post!
5/6/2012
I agree with much of what you are saying; however, when schools, teachers, and students are judged and big decisions are made about them because of the tests, then it is not that unreasonable that they would want to know what the tests entail. Anytime I personally have had to take a high stakes test, I go in more confident if I have some idea of what to expect. I have never studied extensively or purchased study guides, etc., but I do skim through the free resources provided.
5/6/2012
I understand why teachers want the tests... but the problem is that the information that they get from seeing the test (info about the test format) misleads them into teaching the format. The idea of reading instruction is to try to develop reading as a highly generalizable skill or process (or more exactly to know reading so well that one can execute a variety of reading processes depending on the situation). The idea of teaching to the test is to try develop the routine that will allow one to do well on that one instrument.
Here is a math analogy: we teach children single digit addition (e.g., 3+2=5). If teachers knew that the test did't include any 4s or 7s, they would give those combinations less instructional attention (putting the attention where the results would show up on the test). But the test isn't the point: kids need to know single digit addition -- with all of the combinations, not just the ones that might be on a test.
5/6/2012
But...if we teachers are going to be paid by a scale determined by the tests, even fired by the tests, given programs to teach by as well as schedules that are fueled by the end-results of tests.... As you said, its not the testing, its our "counterproductive responses to the testing" that are strangling us and whittling away the joy of learning in our students. My dream is for enlightened teachers to just be able to teach to the needs of kids --to teach the way John Dewey envisioned.
What Are your thoughts?
Leave me a comment and I would like to have a discussion with you!
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