Around the nation more and more school districts like New York City are considering making teacher performance ratings public. One of the many problems with this, simply put, is that the state tests which these tests are based on, well...they suck. Yep. I said it. My background is in K - 8 as a literacy and technology as a former literacy coach, tech coach, library media specialist, and current innovation manager who spent many days grading these subpar assessments. Because of my background and experience, I’m going to focus on the high stakes standard literacy tests K - 8 and explain why they suck.
Background In Reading Assessment
Students read at different levels. Each level has attributes associated with it and there are strategies that learners can take to move to the next level. Teachers assess student reading levels with something called a running record. Today with technology, these readings can even be recorded, so if necessary, the student’s actual running record or reading assessment could be shared. Teachers generally assess student reading at the beginning, middle and end of the year and can easily measure the growth of a student say from a G-Level reader to a J-Level reader. This makes sense as a measurement of student learning. It also allows for students to independently take ownership of their reading level and it is very easy to get families involved in strategies to support students.
The Problem with State Reading Tests
State reading tests provide all students on a grade level with the same test. While the test is an accurate measure of the students who fit the reading level the state arbitrarily has chosen, most students are left behind either because the reading level is too advanced or too easy. In essence the tests assess how well students are doing on something they can’t read well yet...Answer: Not very well. OR...we assess them on something that is below their reading level...So we don’t know growth, we only know they can read that well.
In another words, we’re not really assessing student reading level.
What we do know is that developmentally children become ready to read at different ages (click this link to hear John Taylor Gatto's thoughts on this). We also know that forcing reading on children is actually a deterrent for attaining growth. Finally, we know two extremely important factors in the attainment of reading fluency is family involvement and socio economic class.
None of these factors are in the control of the teacher!
What I propose is that we stop creating a test that makes teachers and students absolutely bonkers, and instead use the running record reading assessments that teachers already use to measure student reading level. Though, while this solves this issue of assessing reading more accurately, it doesn’t take into account that the factors that accelerate reading, really have nothing to do with the teacher.
On to writing...
As shared in Four Reasons Innovative Educators Should Boycott Standardized Tests, the problem with the way writing is assessed in standardized tests stems from the fact they use an outdated and irrelevant method of assessment. If teachers are doing their jobs effectively, students aren’t just focusing on hand it in teaching. Instead they are focused on “publish it” learning, meaning students are communicating authentically to real audiences using the learning style that best matches their strengths. Student work can ideally be kept in a portfolio that can be assessed for writing achievement.
Wouldn’t you want to measure a teacher by how she helps her students publish for authentic audiences in area of deep personal passion rather than how she helps a student write about a topic the state dictates?
The problem with the current method is this.
- We are not measuring what is important. The student’s ability to authentically communicate about topics of importance to them.
- We are valuing writing as the most important method of communication. While this method works well for some, others may excel at communicating through video, cartoon, animation, audio casts etc. etc. We are losing focus of what is important.
- Studies show that students empowered to use technology for communicating will demonstrate improvement however, their scores on writing the old fashioned way with pen and paper will decrease. Sadly, I’ve seen teachers refuse to let students use their own technology because they didn’t want their test scores to decrease. YIKES!!!
This should give just a little insight into why these “teacher assessment” are really not the right way to go. If you’re convinced, you might be thinking, okay, that sounds nice, but there’s nothing we can do. The state makes us take these tests.
There is a movement bubbling up called The Bartleby Project started by John Taylor Gatto which you can read about here. It’s a call to action for students to simply write across the top of their test, “I prefer not to take your test.” The premise being that students and parents should be empowered to decided how their child should best be assessed and not forced by the state to be subjected to very questionable assessments.
The project has a growing following with a Bartleby Project Facebook Page, a number of reprints of John Taylor Gatto’s Bartleby Project proposal from his new book,Weapons of Mass Instruction floating around the web, and a huge round up of videos on You Tube. I’ve included two X-tranormal creations below.
One is a short video from a child’s perspective and the other is taking from John Taylor Gatto’s proposal for those who prefer watching to listening.