Testing Overload

Someone finally did it! In fact, that someone is a longtime colleague of mine who had the courage and persistence to stand up against a system that is just not working. Everyone knows that NCLB (No Child Left Behind) is a model of accountability that is mandated by the federal government to ensure that all students are learning at appropriate academic levels. However, sometimes good intentions can lead to unexpected results. When NCLB began, all the states started developing state assessments that could be used as "measuring sticks" to track student academic growth. As might be expected, the level of difficulty of those tests varied dramatically from state to state. Districts all continued to test using norm reference tests which compared our students to students nationally, not just statewide, like the state assessments. Additionally, districts continued to have students take the PLAN, EXPLORE, and ACT to determine college readiness. Selected grades are also asked to participate in the NAEP which is used to determine how our students fare nationally and even internationally. Our students are simply on testing overload.

So, what can we do about this concern? We can do what my colleague did. First we have to look at results to see what they tell us. Frankly, what they say is that we are giving too many tests that really don't help prepare our students for college readiness or the world of work. When we look at our state assessments, many of our students are scoring proficient or distinguished. When we look at the results of the same students on tests like the ACT, we see that our students are not performing as well and do not demonstrate their college/work readiness. So, which testing is more important? I would suggest that we need to seriously consider doing what my colleague did - get a waiver from the Department of Education to drop the state assessments and focus on the nationally normed and college/work readiness assessments. We are simply spending too much time on testing which takes away from valueable learning time. Our students lose their focus to do well on testing when they are faced with the overload of current assessments. Let's make our assessments something valueable. There are two types of assessment we should use: formative which is used by the teacher to determine what students are ready to learn, and summative which is a final measure of what students can demonstrate they have learned. We can do this without the state assessments. They are just more tests that our students are currently required to take. Unless state assessments can be aligned with national standards, they are unecessary and just add to our students' burden of too much testing.