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Biggest roadblock, shackles, weight, the pressure of teaching to the test. As long as we are getting the standards why must we teach that exact problem solving? #Notaboutit #FREEUS

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How do we assess student growth, while simultaneously, ending the unfair qualities of standardized testing?

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Standardized testing has ignited a national debate in the last few years (or decades), and many parents feel understandably concerned about their children being judged on the basis of tests that, in some cases, don't seem to reliably correlate with actual learning or with successful college and career outcomes.

In the United States, both public and private schools use standardized assessments each school year. In public schools, students must undergo many tests to ensure they are meeting state or federal standards. Private schools have more leeway, although at Whitby we do require our students from Grade 2 on to complete the Comprehensive Testing Program from the Educational Records Bureau and the International Schools Assessment from the Australian Council for Educational Research.

At Whitby, we believe that standardized testing can benefit students-as long as it's looked at in the right light. Below we'll discuss some of the benefits of standardized assessments, as well as some of the ways standardised assessments can be negative for students.

The Pros and Cons of Standardized Testing

Pro # 1. Standardized testing is a metric for learning

When Whitby students are assessed through standardized testing, we gain a valuable metric we can use to check the quality of our curriculum. With exams created and given by an independent organization, standardized test scores are useful because they come from a neutral source and give us data that we can compare to other independent schools across the United States and with other international schools across the globe.

Pro # 2. Standardized testing helps pinpoint areas for improvement

When we receive standardized test data at Whitby, we use it to evaluate the effectiveness of our education program. We view standardized testing data as not only another set of data points to assess student performance , but also as a means to help us reflect on our curriculum. When we look at Whitby's assessment data, we can compare our students to their peers at other schools to determine what we're doing well within our educational continuum and where we need to invest more time and resources.

Pro # 3. Standardized tests can help schools evaluate progress

Assessment data is also useful for year-over-year internal comparisons. We compare data over a number of years to find trends-and then trace any changes back to their source. If the math scores of our fourth grade students suddenly jump, we want to identify what change led to the improved performance, and how we can continue to implement this within our curriculum. We're also able to use a student's historical assessment data to monitor their progress and uncover any challenges they may need to overcome (as well as identifying places where they have already improved and excelled.)
Now let's take a look at what we view as the most concerning aspects of standardized assessment:
Con #1. Test scores can impact confidence

A big disadvantage of standardized testing is that it's easy to interpret a student's score as the sole judgement of that student's ability. We're constantly emphasizing at Whitby that the number is only one point of data within an array of internal assessments across many subject areas that provide us with information on a student's learning progress. There are many cases where students have demonstrated clear understanding within a subject or concept through various assessments, but aren't as skilled at taking multiple choice tests. Nevertheless, it can be hard on a student if they feel that they didn't perform as well as they'd like. In worst case scenarios, instead of determining the entire picture of learning through a review of all assessment data with their teachers, a student might determine their success based on a standardized test score that is taken once a year..

Con #2. There's pressure to "teach to the test"

When standardized exams become all important in a school or district, it has a massive impact on teaching and learning. Educators frequently start "teaching to the test" if they feel that their evaluations (and jobs) solely depend on how well students perform. Educators may also stop trying new techniques and teaching methods in the classroom. With every minute counting on the way to their students' next exam, teachers will worry that an untested method will backfire and their students will score worse than before. This comes at the cost of inquiry, engagement, creativity and risk taking in student learning.

Con #3. Scores don't provide a true picture of a student's ability

Far too many people wrongly assume that standardized testing data provides a neutral authoritative assessment of a child's intellectual ability. Cultural factors, unfamiliarity with testing methods, test anxiety, and illness can wreak havoc with how well a student performs. For that reason, it's important to dig deeper when looking at a student's test scores. Does a low score indicate a lack of knowledge about the subject or a problem with taking the standardized test? For example, an excellent writer could struggle with picking out the right answer in a multiple choice grammar and punctuation test. Yet that same student could excel at composing well-thought out, logical essays about the literature they read and enjoyed in class.

It's also easy to assume that students who score high in math are good at processing information and reasoning abstractly, but that's not always the case. In fact, researchers have found that high standardized scores have little correlation with memory, attention and processing speed. High test scores could simply mean a student excels at rote memorization and multiple choice test taking.

Our Final Assessment

Standardized testing is truthfully a very difficult issue, because we do need internal and external assessments to measure student success. Assessments are useful when they're used as data to help schools improve the quality of the teaching and learning. They become harmful, however, when tests are used to judge students' natural abilities and when educators are put under pressure to "teach to the test." Schools and parents should always look at standardized tests not as a value judgement on the student, but as an additional data point that can provide some perspective on student learning.

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The Pros and Cons of Standardized Testing

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Standardized testing has ignited a national debate in the last few years (or decades), and many parents feel understandably concerned about their children being judged on the basis of tests that, in some cases, don't seem to reliably correlate with actual learning or with successful college and career outcomes.

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The average student takes 112 standardized tests between pre-k and 12th grade. 

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The average student takes 112 standardized tests between pre-k and 12th grade. 

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If we had to continue standardized testing, how would we make it the most ideal?

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If we had to continue standardized testing, how would we make it the most ideal?

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For more than two decades, Colorado public school students have taken annual tests to measure how well they've mastered the state's English and math learning standards.

The spring tests have evolved since 1997, when they were first given to fourth graders. These days, they're measuring whether students met updated standards that emphasize critical thinking and are usually taken on a computer or tablet, not with paper and pencil.

Now the state's tests are about to change again - for the third time in seven years.

Last month, the state education department announced it would back away from the multi-state testing partnership known as PARCC to begin developing its own English and math tests with help from the international testing conglomerate Pearson. The British-based company already helps the state design and administer its social studies and science tests. Pearson also provides the technology used to give the PARCC test.

State officials said the multi-year transition should cause little disruption. Beginning next spring, Colorado students are expected to take an abbreviated PARCC test. Then in 2019, the state will use a sampling of questions purchased from PARCC and new questions it develops with Pearson's help.

One of the goals of the protracted transition is to maintain year-to-year comparability between tests. Colorado uses the results of the tests to measure school quality, and in some cases teacher ratings. If the tests were to be completely overhauled as they were in 2015, the state would lose a year of data, forcing a pause on school ratings.

How did we get here? Here's a timeline of the past, present and (anticipated) future of Colorado's standardized tests.

1993

Colorado lawmakers require the state education department to develop academic standards and tests to measure how well students know those standards. The tests were known as the Colorado Student Assessment Program, or CSAP.

1997

The CSAP is given for the first time to fourth grade students. Additional grades were added in later years.

2001

President George W. Bush signs the No Child Left Behind Act into law. The landmark legislation requires states to test every student in grades three through eight and once in high school in the subjects of math and English. Testing in Colorado is expanded to meet federal requirements, which also included math tests for third and fourth graders, and science tests for fifth and 10th grade students.

Colorado high school juniors are required to take the ACT, a college entrance exam. Previously, the test was voluntary.

2008

Colorado lawmakers order an update to the state's academic standards and new tests to measure how well students are learning.

2010

Colorado adopts new academic standards, including the Common Core State Standards. The national standards, created by association groups of governors and education commissioners, put a greater emphasis on critical thinking in both math and English.

2012

Colorado students begin taking a new English and math test, the Transitional Colorado Assessment Program, or TCAP. The test was meant to bridge the gap between the state's previous academic standards and the new ones.

Colorado becomes a governing member of PARCC, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. Begun with seed money from the federal government, PARCC is one of two multi-state efforts that built new tests to measure how well students are learning the Common Core standards.

2014

Colorado launches its new science and social studies tests on computers. The tests are given to students in one grade each in elementary, middle and high schools. The online tests were a break from the pencil and paper tests of the past.

Some high school seniors refuse to take the tests, making Colorado one of the national centers of the testing opt-out movement.

2015

Before Colorado gives its first PARCC tests, state lawmakers go to work reducing the number of tests public school students take. Lawmakers reach a last-minute compromise that scales back testing in high school.

Colorado becomes one of a dozen states to give the inaugural PARCC tests. School districts in mostly suburban and rural areas report a large number of students opting out of the tests.

As a result of the legislative testing compromise, the Colorado Department of Education announces a shift from the ACT to the SAT college prep exam for high school juniors, and to the PSAT for sophomores.

2016

Colorado high school sophomores take the PSAT test for the first time, while high school juniors take the ACT for the last time.

The State Board of Education directs the state education department to take bids for a new math and English test for grades three through eight. The board outlines three goals: make the tests shorter, get results back quicker and give Colorado exclusive authority over the design of the tests.

2017

Colorado lawmakers continue to tweak the state's testing system: They scrap the PARCC test for ninth graders, in favor of a test aligned to the SAT.

Colorado juniors take the SAT for the first time.

The state education department announces that the textbook and testing company Pearson won a competitive bid to help the state develop and administer its own English and math tests. The company also will continue to administer the state's social studies and science tests.

The department begins working with teachers to develop new questions for English and math tests.

2018

Colorado will begin its transition away from PARCC, working with the organization to limit the length of the final round of tests to meet the expectations of the state board. The state is also working with PARCC to have student results returned sooner. However, the 2018 math and English tests will be largely unchanged.

The state will complete it review of its academic standards, informing any additional changes to the state's tests.

2019

Colorado, working with Pearson, will take sole control over the design of the state's English and math tests. The state plans to purchase some questions from the PARCC organization, as well as develop new test questions with Pearson. Colorado officials said they plan to only purchase questions from PARCC that were developed with Colorado teachers.
This post was updated to clarify that Pearson provides the technology to administer the PARCC tests, which Colorado currently uses.

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From CSAP to PARCC, here's how Colorado's standardized tests have changed (and what's next)

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For more than two decades, Colorado public school students have taken annual tests to measure how well they've mastered the state's English and math learning standards. The spring tests have evolved since 1997, when they were first given to fourth graders.

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Are we giving standardized tests too young? (CO starts in 3rd Grade)
Does testing harm teaching?
Are tests harmful to students with disabilities and/or culturally biased?

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Come up with your own advocacy action idea with any time frame.

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Ron Maggiano is a veteran teacher who won the Disney Teacher Award for innovation and creativity in 2005 and the American Historical Association's Beveridge Family Teaching Prize for outstanding K-12 teaching in 2006. After a 33-year teaching career, he resigned last year from West Springfield High School in Fairfax County, Va., where he taught social studies. In this post last year, he explained why he was leaving a job he had long loved:

I can no longer cooperate with a testing regime that I believe is suffocating creativity and innovation in the classroom. We are not really educating our students anymore. We are merely teaching them to pass a test. This is wrong. Period.

Now Maggiano offers the following 11 problems that the obsession with high-stakes testing in school reform is causing in America's schools.

1. The obsession with high-stakes standardized tests is stifling creativity and imagination in the classroom.
-- The overemphasis on testing has led many teachers to eliminate projects and activities that provide students with an opportunity to be creative and imaginative, and scripted curriculum has become the norm in many classrooms. There is nothing creative or imaginative about filling in a bubble sheet for a multiple choice test. Students are so tired of prepping for and taking standardized test that some have protested by dressing up like zombies to protest - and thousands of families are opting their children out of taking high-stakes exams.

2. The obsession with test scores as the chief "accountability" metric for students, educators and schools has led to the exams becoming an end instead of a means to an end.
- In some states even the most severely disabled students are being forced to take standardized tests. In Florida, for example, one boy who was born without the cognitive portion of his brain has been required to take an alternative version of the state's standardized exams.

3. Standardized tests are being used in high-stakes ways to evaluate and punish teachers.
- The Obama administration's "Race to the Top" initiative coerces states to use student standardized test scores to evaluate teachers even though the exams were never intended for this purpose and the results are not reliable indicators a teacher's effectiveness. This "test and punish" approach to teacher evaluation has caused some schools and districts to ignore other factors affecting student achievement such as poverty and socioeconomic status.

4. The obsession with standardized testing by reformers is driving good teachers to leave their profession.
-Many teachers have become disillusioned with the time spent preparing students for, and administering, tests. Morale in the teaching profession is at a 20-year low.

5. The obsession with standardized tests is promoting a culture of cheating in many schools.
-Recent cheating scandals involving teachers and administrators in Atlanta and dozens of other cities have been directly linked to the pressure to raise test scores.

6. The obsession with standardized tests is driving teachers - fearful that their jobs will be stake if student test scores don't rise - to teach to the test.
-Most educators agree that teaching to the test is wrong, yet this has become standard operating procedure in most classrooms.

7. When standardized tests are the most important thing, the fostering of critical thinking in the classroom gets short shrift.
- Rote memorization has become commonplace in many classes.

8. The obsession with raising student standardized test scores is leading to a one-size-fits-all curriculum that ignores the needs of individual students.
-Every student is a unique individual with their own talents and abilities. The standardized testing regime fails to recognize the importance of individual achievement in education and instead uses a "cookie cutter" approach to learning that ignores students' individual interests and abilities.

9. Standardized tests are not helping to prepare students for college or careers.
- After more than a dozen years of the No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top eras in which high-stakes tests have dominated, students are no more ready to do well in college than they were before - and many are less so. Corporate CEOs complain that students aren't learning the kinds of skills needed to succeed in the modern workplace.

10. The high-stakes standardized tests used in U.S. public schools do not accurately measure what students have learned.
- The kinds of standardized tests that have been used in U.S. public schools cannot assess critical thinking well, if at all. It is also true that many students do poorly on standardized tests even though they may have achieved mastery over the material. The stress of "test anxiety" can be debilitating for many students.

11. Standardized tests mostly benefit companies making millions from them.
- Companies such as Pearson Education and others have profited enormously from the testing obsession.

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11 problems created by the standardized testing obsession

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A veteran teacher writes about the reality in schools today.

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Education for Today and Tomorrow | L'Education Aujourd'hui et Demain

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Many teachers acknowledge that comparative assessment techniques, such as standardized tests, often measure performance more than knowledge. Students may recite information, but have little ability to apply it to their lives. This can frustrate teachers, who may feel these systems can't be changed. Some school boards are asking governments to suspend administering standardized tests. But even if they can't reform education policies overnight, teachers have more ability to change things than they realize, says one New Zealand academic.

"We've been taught as a profession to become passive, to go, 'Well we can't undo this'," says Welby Ings, a design professor at Auckland University of Technology and former K-12 classroom teacher in New Zealand. "But actually, it's our professional responsibility to question things that are not right."

Ings encourages teachers to become what he calls "positively disobedient." He doesn't think teachers should be disruptive without reason. Instead, they need to be creative and challenge rituals to help students learn. Teachers may want to do this, but not know how. That's one of the reasons Ings recently wrote a book on the subject, Disobedient Teaching. He uses examples from his career to give what he calls "an arm around the shoulder" for teachers who need encouragement in their jobs.

There are many problems with standard tests, which Ings calls "a very blunt and ineffective tool for understanding learning." Diagnostic assessments help teachers understand what students know and how they learn. Comparative assessments, however, can create artificial hierarchies that promote unnecessary competition, and discourage students from learning, he says.

Not all students are affected by traditional assessments in the same way. They can hinder students differently, depending on how people learn, says Ings.

The demand to produce answers immediately can disadvantage reflective students who need time to think about a concept from many different perspectives before giving a response. Other students become anxious when taking tests and make mistakes even if they know the material. The examination room can be like a "meat grinder" to them, says Ings. "They need a certain amount of grace around their thinking so they can actually apply very delicate and nuanced approaches to working with knowledge".

Students who excel, however, at these assessments are vulnerable too, says Ings. They may be so focused on the grade they neglect to look at feedback, or consider how they can improve. They can lose respect for the value of learning.

Ings encourages teachers to create a classroom culture that encourages critical self-assessment. This doesn't need to happen through long, complicated exercises. It can be as simple as asking students questions about what they liked about their work and how they would change what they did if they had more time. Or it could mean having students review each other's work. Ings often had his high-school students review two classmates' essays. They would say what they thought was good about each piece, and what they thought could be improved. This is a smaller-scale version of the peer-review process in higher levels of academia.

Other times, Ings had students review their assignments before he sent them home with reports. He would give them time to look through their work, and ask them to pick out the assignment they liked most. They would scan the assignment and write about what they liked about it, what they learned while they were working on it, and what they planned to do next. It took about an hour, he said, and it helped students learn to think critically and assess their own work.

Self-assessment and reflection are skills students are going to need when they leave school, regardless of what professions they may acquire. Good marks don't create respect or meaningful relationships, says Ings. "Nobody will fall in love with you because you got 86 (on an assignment)." What those outside of school, like future employers, really want to know about is how people think and act.

Ings acknowledges creating these classroom environments can be difficult. The high priority placed on standard assessments can be dangerous for teachers, and the quality of education they provide. They may be tempted to skew marks to be higher. Or, they could emphasize parts of the curriculum they know will be on tests and ignore portions that don't often get evaluated. In these ways, traditional tests can encourage teachers to become "corrupt."

Ings encourages teachers and administrators who want to become positively obedient to connect with similar professionals. Sometimes, teachers want to be heroes, but no change can come by individuals working alone, he says. When people become isolated, there's no one else giving them resources to help them. This can make it easier to become passive-because they don't see others changing things, they may find it hard to believe they can change things too. Ultimately, this can produce cynicism, a belief that nothing can change.

Passionate teachers, those for whom teaching is a calling connected with their identity, need this community even more, says Ings. They often bring a humanity to teaching that allows them to connect with diverse and difficult students. But because they're so invested in their students, they are vulnerable to getting hurt deeply. They want to help, so they may agree to do too many things. This can cause them to burn out, says Ings, who admits he left teaching twice because of these types of problems. It's important for teachers to have friends who will tell them when they're taking on too much.

Supportive communities can help encourage belief, and that's crucial.

"Don't give up belief," says Ings, "because it's only through belief that you can change things."
Meagan Gillmore is a freelance writer in Toronto, ON.

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Many teachers acknowledge that comparative assessment techniques, such as standardized tests, often measure performance more than knowledge. Students may recite information, but have little ability to apply it to their lives. This can frustrate teachers, who may feel these systems can't be changed. Some school boards are asking governments to suspend administering standardized tests.

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"The obsession with standardized tests is driving teachers — fearful that their jobs will be stake if student test scores don’t rise — to teach to the test."

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"The obsession with standardized tests is driving teachers — fearful that their jobs will be stake if student test scores don’t rise — to teach to the test."