A recent MindShift blog post, “Will More Prominent Colleges Abandon the SAT?” gives me hope!
Looks like Ithaca College in upstate New York now has made SAT test scores optional. There are a handful of other colleges who have done the same.
Standardized test scores add remarkably little to our ability to predict a student’s success.
– Eric Macguire, Ithaca College
I’ve blogged before about my strong dislike for standardized testing and treating kids as numbers. But, since I am just a parent, my voice doesn’t seem to count for much. District staff dismiss my concerns because I don’t know enough (they think) and tell me not to worry about my kids’ scores. But they sure do worry about the scores! Everything is seen through the lens of test scores: the achievement gap, funding, class placement, graduation rates, curriculum, etc.
Thank goodness for teacher bloggers like Pernille Ripp and Larry Ferlazzo who reacted to a recently posted video by Alfie Kohn in which a high school student is “prepped” for a high stakes standardized test. (I am not going to post the video here. You can see it by linking to either of the posts linked above.)
The comments have eloquently stated their feelings about these tests, and I agree. My son attends a school where they do very little testing — only one test a year starting in 6th grade. I can so readily see the difference when the teachers don’t have to teach to the test.
In a recent meeting with World Language teachers (I’m a parent rep on a district curriculum committee), they discussed how they’d like to incorporate online learning more, but the labs are so frequently booked with testing. (The obvious solution is a 1:1 or BYOD set up.) At my daughter’s high school, the kids who aren’t taking the tests don’t go to school during testing time. Something is also wrong with that picture….
Numbers and data shouldn’t drive education. Students should.
Today was the first day of the standardize testing season at our house. My daughter is a high school freshman. She had to take the GRAD test for writing this morning. Fortunately, she doesn’t get stressed about these tests. I hope she takes it seriously enough to pass, but that’s about it.
She said there were a number of kids in her group who didn’t speak much English. (The school has a large refuge population.) They were taken out of the room in order to have the directions explained, then came back in to complete the test. The test involved them writing an essay to incoming high school freshman about their high school experience.
I find this crazy. These poor kids, who don’t speak enough English to understand the directions, are expected to write an essay like this? What does that do to them? How do they feel getting that failing grade back? What a waste of their time. If someone can tell me a good reason to make these kids do this test, please let me know.
My daughter was actually pretty upset by this. Here’s her Facebook post:
What perversely minded educator though it would be a good idea to make kids who can’t speak English yet write an essay for the MCAs? This is the 21st century!
After dropping my daughter at school to take these ridiculous tests, I ran across an amazing blog post by Will Richardson about why he is opting his son out of their state standardized tests. His reasoning is sound, and I am happy to know that some of my thoughts about standardized tests are echoed in his letter. I wholeheartedly agree wtih his points like the fact that testing changes the whole focus of teaching and that rewarding teachers based on their students’ test scores harms both teachers and students. (More on my thoughts about standardized tests from an earlier post I wrote.)
The conversation on Twitter about this post drew in the big names in this field, and the conversation was lively. I am grateful to Mr. Richardson for taking the big step.
We seriously considered opting my daughter out of tests last year, but I didn’t have the guts to do it. (Then again, I’m not Will Richardson with a huge education reform audience!) But he has given me the courage to move forward. Unfortunately, my daughter is at the point where these tests are required for graduation, so I’m not sure we have the option to opt out at this point. I need to make some stand about this, I’m just not sure how.
Now I find out there are many people choosing to opt out. I wish I had known that last year! Here are a couple more blog posts about opting out. Go for it!
My Wired Life 