By Kristin
Something's been bugging me lately. While I support testing to gauge whether a child's where she's supposed to be or not, and I support using that information as one of the many possible measures of a teacher's impact on a child's growth, I am not happy with testing in Washington State. I wish my district and OSPI would get themselves organized.
I'm starting to feel like a 41-year old student driver, a driver who's had her license and been driving professionally for sixteen years now, but who still has an instructor next to her telling her what to do. To make it worse, while my instructor is telling me to how to steer, park and reverse a car, the test I'll ultimately have to take involves flying a plane.
As a language arts teacher the skills I'm responsible for are reading and writing. My students take the MAP (measure of academic progress) test in fall and spring, and the MSP (measure of student progress) in the spring. Sounds reasonable so far, right? There are problems.
The first is that I have one period a day for LA, but my kids will need to sit two full-length tests for the MSP – a reading and a writing test. Math teachers get a period a day for one test, so do science teachers. Perhaps it would make sense for LA teachers to get a period a day for reading and a period for writing. How well would kids do on math if they had math for half a period? While I don't support making excuses, I think we need to be realistic that you get what you pay for. Put less time into reading and writing, you'll see less growth.
Some schools have invested more time in reading and writing, and their students are showing faster growth. My school did something smart, which was to combine LA and history into blocks, so at least I have kids for two periods and can try to cover some reading/writing ground in history, but it's not the best solution if the problem is that our students aren't where we want them with reading and writing.
And it gets worse, because my district has mandated that middle schools use the Readers/Writers Workshop curriculum, out of the Teachers College at Columbia. R/W workshop does some things very well, and I would argue that Readers Workshop works best for children who do not learn good reading habits in their home, but 1) there is not a natural alignment between R/W workshop and what kids will have to do on the MAP and MSP and 2) R/W workshop can't be done as effectively with only one period a day. To teach the curriculum with integrity, you need a full period for each. So the burden is on the teacher to figure out how to make it work. It frustrates me because I don't like sacrificing doing something well in order to do something else halfway. I no longer need a driving instructor in the car with me.
But it gets worse, because my district also uses the MAP test to measure a child's growth. The MAP test is great in many ways – it provides a lot of data about where a child is and what a child needs to learn, but I walked around behind my students while they took the MAP test and frantically jotted down the questions and guess what? There is an absolute disconnect between Readers Workshop and the MAP.
In the most simple and generalized explanation, Readers Workshop looks like this, "We just had a mini lesson on inference – go read for 40 minutes and use Post-Its to jot down inferences you make as you read. I'll come around and conference with you to see how you're doing." The MAP asks things like this, "The iambic pentameter of this sonnet does what to the tone? A) B) C) or D)?"
I've been teaching for awhile. I work really hard to diagnose a child's skills and design curriculum to help that child grow. I'm perfectly comfortable with my employer giving me a job requirement and telling me I need to hit a certain target. I'm supportive of my employer evaluating my effectiveness. While I enjoy parental support of a child's academic growth, I'm okay with being 100% responsible for teaching a child to read and write. It's what I'm paid to do.
But I am not okay with being told to hit a certain target, and then being told how to get there if the directions have nothing to do with my final destination. I'm not okay with being treated like a student driver if I'm going to have to fly a plane to be considered good at my job.
OSPI, Seattle, take a look at the curriculum and take a look at the assessments and make sure they are aligned. Thank you.
I’m dealing with these standards, this curriculum, and the upcoming assessment every day, and I’m saying they are not aligned.
Kristin, you’ve basically articulated clear evidence for why high-stakes testing is wrong. You’ve also clarified a major problem in using student test scores to evaluate teachers.
Well done.
I know. We’ve gotten the cart so far before the horse that the two aren’t even connected anymore, with teachers racing back and forth between the two.
And it’s going to get even worse, if that’s possible, because I’ve been told that the MSP will be a test taken on the computer next year. This is a horrible idea.
My school has a lot of resources, but to take the computerized MAP test we lost the library and all the computer rooms (where classes are taught) for a few days, plus the many days of retakes required for kids who hadn’t finished or were absent on test day. Our laptops were not up to the task, so all the time spent setting them up and duct-taping down cords and power strips was wasted and the kids shuffled off to the overflow room.
I think the sequencing is obvious:
1) Identify what you want kids to know at each grade
2) Make that information easily available to parents and teachers.
3) Make sure parents/teachers/central office staff / OSPI have thoroughly internalized the objectives.
4) Set up some assessments, and make them efficient with time and resources – don’t make it computerized if not every school has enough resources.
5) Give teachers some time to design curriculum to meet the standards and align with the test. If they find a packaged curriculum they feel will work, buy it.
6) Vet the effectivness of the curriculum by measuring student growth, revise curriculum as necessry.
7) Take a look at how effective teachers are at helping students meet objectives.
Here’s what I feel like our sequencing has been:
1) Create a state assessment
2) Roll out state objectives, then try to merge our state objectives with whatever’s recently rolled out nationally
3) Publicly praise the schools that are doing well on the assessments and freak out families who feel their home is in a low-score neighborhood
4) Change the name of the assessment, tweak it a bit, but don’t update the online resources for educators until three days before the assessment
5) Add another assessment that requires a huge amount of time and tech support, but release zero practice materials or test-previews so that teachers can prepare their students or update their curriculum
6) Spend money on some curriculum that was successful in another state and impose it on teachers
7) Take a look at test data when evaluating teachers.
I mean, no one is more vocal about a teacher’s need to be effective than I am. I am for assessment. I am for using that data when we evaluate teachers. I do not think assessing a child’s skill destroys teaching valuable things like love of literature, appreciation of art, and civic duty. These kids will have to do well on the SAT to get into college. I’m okay with testing.
But I wonder if anyone’s stopped to examine whether the curriculum, objectives and assessments match? It seems to me that should come first.
I’m dealing with these standards, this curriculum, and the upcoming assessment every day, and I’m saying they are not aligned.
Thanks for the post Kristin. You’ve articulated a frustration of mine. I have hopes that the common core standards will help all stakeholders align their curriculum and assessment.
As my school has marched towards the precipice of NCLB sanctions we’ve made an effort to align our curriculum to the standards. We use the Math Expressions curriculum for K-5. The curriculum’s scope and standards align vertically (the skills in 2nd grade are built upon in 3rd etc.). But the standards don’t consistently match Washington’s standards. In my current unit there are 19 objectives. Only 10 of those objectives relate to my grade level standards.
If a lesson’s objective doesn’t match the state’s standards should I still teach it? Obviously the curriculum writers thought it was of benefit to students. But since the stakes are rising (assessment-wise) I’m more inclined to focus my instructional energy teaching to the test – with the assumption the test holds sacred the critical skills our students need. But you know what happens when you assume…