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Standarized Testing Alternative

By Robert RosecloseAuthor: Robert Rose Name: Robert Rose
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About: Dr.Rose has taught every grade in four major school districts in So.California. He has been successful using an eclectic and complex approach derived from solid research in the sciences. His web sites imaginativecurriculum.com and YouTube.com/icdrrose videos are filled with his books, workbooks, and videos that challenge the status quo. He has attempted to teach based on the Constitution and mutual respect and it has worked. For forty-five years in a yours, mine, and ours marriage, he enjoys a family that is demonstratively affectionate and loving. His latest book, Abuses of Power in Education; Challenging Practically Everything, Outskirts Press, 2008, is one of the main sources for the ideas he will be explaining in his blogs. He believes that students, teachers, parents, and administrators need legal power and protection to be able to have the freedom to do their job most effectively. No person or group should have unlimited power and that's why balance is as important as autonomy.See Authors Posts (18)

www.imaginativecurriculum.com

Would you hire a person to educate the students in your town if he told you 20% would fail or be below average and another 60% would be average?

No! You would not want your children to be labeled and humiliated. You would want them to do better than below average or average, you would want to give them the chance to get 100%. As it stands now millions of students are labeled – inferior. Is it any wonder that so many of them drop out as soon as they can? This label is considered to be scientifically correct and then is used by teachers and administrators to prove that the student is functioning at an inferior level. They believe it and so do the student and his parents. It is one reason that they do more poorly in school. This causes irreparable damage to their beliefs about their abilities! This does not have to be!

You accept standardized testing even though it is more of a social and political statement than an accurate assessment of what each student knows – or possibly should know. The tests are purposely created to insure that there are clear indications of inferiority and superiority. (Dr. Popham from UCLA has written extensively about how the tests are developed and field-tested to achieve specific social results– and the damage they create.)

Since most people believe the tests are statistically and scientifically valid and reliable, everyone using them assumes any labeling is correct. They also believe that the skills and content are important for all students to know and the tests give accurate data on how well they’ve learned these.

E.D. Hirsch, Jr. in CULTURAL LITERACY, 1987, promoted higher standards and a curriculum based on his ideas of the specific skills, concepts, and content that each student (citizen) should know. What these are continues to be debated, but the standardized tests seem to be what has been agreed upon and accepted and sponsored by the federal government.

Although for years I knew more school decisions are political or social than educational, I couldn’t come up with a reasonable alternative that would be acceptable to so many vested interests. I offer a fresh concept.   IF standardized tests are to be used, then all their questions (all have a bank of them used for each different test booklet) and the contexts they are taken from should be on the Net for everyone to see! This would mean everyone had the opportunity to learn what the nation believed were critical facts or concepts that all citizens should know. This also fits what Duncan and Obama want. It would be specific for grade level and content area classes. Students, parents, and teachers could each determine the amount of extra or school time spent on test preparation.

Instead of 20% failures, there would be a possibility (even though remote) of 100% success! This is a paradigm shift in thinking about how the tests should be used. Some individual students, parents, and teachers would be more highly motivated and would be more successful. There would continue to be a range in the natural abilities of all concerned and so some would do better on the tests, but almost everyone would show improvement, growth. A normal curve would appear for comparison purposes, but more knowledge and learning would have occurred that would benefit individuals and our country. Furthermore, no student, teacher, school, or district would be labeled on the basis of one test.

The differences would be that each individual involved in education could choose how much effort to give to learning what are considered the most important facts and concepts for that grade level or content area class. Choice gives real power to students, parents, and teachers. The Net and media would soon fill with free ideas in many formats that would offer more ways to learn this material than any teacher has to time to develop or to teach as learning would extend beyond the classroom and make it more interesting, easier, and satisfying.

Some teachers may object, saying that it would undermine their ability to teach things their way and in the sequences and time frames they believe are best. My response is that when you share power you increase student motivation and responsibility and increase, not decrease learning. These teachers would find that the students would bring so much more to class that their job would be more exciting. They would be more effective as the students would be seen (and would be) not as blank slates, but as active participants. Anyone in the country would have easy access to this information. Our entire country would have the opportunity to share in the concepts, facts, beliefs, and skills considered critical to be an educated person.

Look at the interactions on the Net. Some are inane, but there are many exciting discussions about important issues too. Isn’t an educated citizenry the major goal of a democratic society?

Standardized testing could continue, but its impact on time spent preparing for it would be more practical since it would be only one part of student and teacher assessment. It would not be the only determiner of funding or any draconian consequences, but would be helpful in deciding what still needed to be taught. The educational purpose of testing is feedback to the teacher to determine what was learned, what needs to be reinforced, and where to go next.

The major determiners of evaluations would be what was actually taught and learned in each classroom and the best assessment medium would be the student computer portfolio. It would be a more fair assessment of each student’s actual progress and problems and a more accurate evaluation of each teacher, school, and district. It would contain teacher-made, publisher-made, and district-made tests of what teachers taught and each district, school, and class believed best met the needs of each specific population. In this way everyone would be assessed on a spectrum of tests, not on one!

Now teachers get the results of the Standardized Tests, but they are of little use. As Stated, tests are most beneficial when given by a teacher to assess how well she’s taught the lesson generally and what the class needs to be taught again. It is most helpful to evaluate each student’s progress and to determine how to meet that specific student’s needs. These teacher or publisher-made tests should immediately (a few days or weeks) follow what was taught for teacher feedback to plan the next lessons.

Unit tests or achievement tests demonstrate more long term and deeper understanding. All of these could be organized in individual student computer portfolios. These could be compared in countless ways and negate the need for Standardized Tests.

No student, class, teacher, school, or district should be evaluated on the basis on any one test. (I worked with J.P. Guilford, Professor Emeritus of USC and author of textbooks on testing, on standardizing one of his tests. I was disturbed at how inaccurate the best test can be, even after careful analysis.)

Standardized tests are a major focus of school concerns and have resulted in the lowest teacher morale that I’ve seen in fifty years.

With computer portfolios students, teachers, and parents each would have to assume only his/her part of the accountability of the result. The playing field would still depend partly on inherent student abilities (testing of these would be part of the portfolio – and it would need a change of laws), of teaching ability, but individual motivation would give more students a better chance.

This addresses the best uses of testing in assessing student progress and needs as well as a more reasonable and fair way to evaluate what the teacher is actually teaching. The political uses of testing would be greatly diminished.   My suggestions give those with vested interests in testing a piece of the financial pie, but there would be a major shift in freedom and power as students, teachers, and parents could assert their choices in ways presently impossible.   Teacher morale and effectiveness would improve. Fewer teachers would resign in frustration and despair and more would be attracted to teaching, and fewer students would drop out.   This would give those who believe in national standards a means to promote it, but also give teachers autonomy and flexibility, give parents and students greater power and motivation to learn these standards, and have a realistic and fair way to assess students, teachers, and districts. Everyone wins.