| The Slice of Life Story Challenge is hosted by the talented team at Two Writing Teachers. Link up your slice on Tuesdays all year. Thanks, Stacey, Tara, Dana, Betsy, Anna and Beth. |
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It is difficult to write about testing. I have a lot of skin in this game. Daily skin. Skin I care about sits at desks, logs into computers, stands and watches: teenage skin and middle school skin and teacher skin and administrator skin. Still, Tuesdays, I confer with readers and writers over pieces students write in their journals. This last month of school choice reigns. Students are practicing writing--argument, analysis, response, narrative--they choose. Today, one student wrote about testing. This student's writing reflects the pressures we all feel during testing season.
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| One of two pages of journal writing for this week; the student did eventually come to the conclusion that though stressful, students need to stop worrying and consider that everything will be fine. |
Now students are taking state-constructed EOCs for core content classes (math, science, social studies), Advanced Placement exams--even college readiness exams like the PERT. A streamlined testing schedule went out in our emailed community bulletin recently.
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The course of exams students must take looks simple. Many tests collar specific grade levels and do not affect all ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades on the same day. However, each day during any given week proctors are actually administering several tests as students who missed an exam one day must be scheduled for make up sessions within the testing window. Today, students logged on to the computerized testing site to take exams for Biology and AP US Government and Geometry and Algebra I and Algebra II .-- the latter math exams were all make up sessions. These EOCs affect students' final grades and course credits, so opting out is not an option for students who want to earn a standard high school diploma.
On any given day during a testing window, students, any where from 1 or 2 to 12 or 25 are testing. Staying the curricular course and maintaining instructional momentum is challenging, especially if several of your students missed a testing session (or two) and now must make up tests. Under such conditions there are bound to be knowledge gaps if some students miss content and do not make it up.
The Florida legislature recently amended Senate Bill 7069 which will affect future testing. In February, Education Commissioner Pam Stewart recommended cuts to testing; politicians have echoed the sentiment since. One line in the statute calls for a limit on the number of hours students will be testing. According to SB 7069, the district may not schedule more than "5 percent of a student's total school hours ... to administer statewide,standardized assessments and district-required local assessments." Long over due, limits on testing time sound good. What does "5 percent of student's total school hours" really mean? Does it include time spent administering make up tests? Or time spent troubleshooting technology troubles?
Students have 7 classes that are 47 minutes each every day except Wednesday. Wednesday's classes are 37 minutes each. Each week students are in all of their classes for a total of 1, 575 minutes (or 26.25 hours). Students are in my English classroom 225 minutes a week (or 3.75 hours). The school year runs 36 weeks, so students' seat time in English class is 135 hours. Five percent of the total number of hours students are in my class works out to 6.75 hours: more than one week in English class of our 36 weeks together can, by law, be given over to test administration. Does that mean that each subject gets one week to test?
Are we sacrificing 7 weeks to tests? Have I really, by law, lost nearly an entire quarter of the school year?
On any given day during a testing window, students, any where from 1 or 2 to 12 or 25 are testing. Staying the curricular course and maintaining instructional momentum is challenging, especially if several of your students missed a testing session (or two) and now must make up tests. Under such conditions there are bound to be knowledge gaps if some students miss content and do not make it up.
The Florida legislature recently amended Senate Bill 7069 which will affect future testing. In February, Education Commissioner Pam Stewart recommended cuts to testing; politicians have echoed the sentiment since. One line in the statute calls for a limit on the number of hours students will be testing. According to SB 7069, the district may not schedule more than "5 percent of a student's total school hours ... to administer statewide,standardized assessments and district-required local assessments." Long over due, limits on testing time sound good. What does "5 percent of student's total school hours" really mean? Does it include time spent administering make up tests? Or time spent troubleshooting technology troubles?Students have 7 classes that are 47 minutes each every day except Wednesday. Wednesday's classes are 37 minutes each. Each week students are in all of their classes for a total of 1, 575 minutes (or 26.25 hours). Students are in my English classroom 225 minutes a week (or 3.75 hours). The school year runs 36 weeks, so students' seat time in English class is 135 hours. Five percent of the total number of hours students are in my class works out to 6.75 hours: more than one week in English class of our 36 weeks together can, by law, be given over to test administration. Does that mean that each subject gets one week to test?
Are we sacrificing 7 weeks to tests? Have I really, by law, lost nearly an entire quarter of the school year?
When I think about instructional hours and hours spent testing, I can't ignore instructional hours lost because of testing disruptions. Tests in my state are, by law, computer-based . In order to give computer-based tests students have to be moved into and out of classrooms that are equipped with technology.
To improve access to the required technology, our district built four new computer labs and provided the school with upwards of ten laptop carts. We have close to 3,500 students at school; you can imagine the access we need when all tenth The laptop carts, fortunately or unfortunately, are securely stored in teachers's closets and classrooms and can be used for authentic instructional purposes when not required for testing. In order to test, teachers must vacate their classrooms so that the securely stored laptops can be used for testing.
I know one teacher who will be in her room just two days for the entire month of May. How many hours is that? Such collateral damage may be too complex to simply count. Sure, if we teachers plan ahead and pack appropriate resources and supplies, minutes need not be wasted. The truth is, minutes, class periods, days are endangered as the testing schedule takes over.
Too much is too much. As John Oliver said, "here comes the monkey." It's no wonder students are hitting their testing limits. Learning is too.
To improve access to the required technology, our district built four new computer labs and provided the school with upwards of ten laptop carts. We have close to 3,500 students at school; you can imagine the access we need when all tenth The laptop carts, fortunately or unfortunately, are securely stored in teachers's closets and classrooms and can be used for authentic instructional purposes when not required for testing. In order to test, teachers must vacate their classrooms so that the securely stored laptops can be used for testing.
I know one teacher who will be in her room just two days for the entire month of May. How many hours is that? Such collateral damage may be too complex to simply count. Sure, if we teachers plan ahead and pack appropriate resources and supplies, minutes need not be wasted. The truth is, minutes, class periods, days are endangered as the testing schedule takes over.
Too much is too much. As John Oliver said, "here comes the monkey." It's no wonder students are hitting their testing limits. Learning is too.
Thanks for your insightful post and especially including the John Oliver clip. I've missed catching his new show. Let's hope his points and yours get people talking more about this important topic.
ReplyDeleteSo hard to read Slices about testing. Not as hard as writing though. Maybe we are turning a corner to something better, a better use for those new computers. Fingers-crossed.
ReplyDeleteDigital Bonnie
I do think we are beginning the slow turn, Bonnie, but I imagine, for public, state-side schools anyway, that a move to test less will be modest and incremental.
DeleteGreat, informative post. Loved reading your students' thoughts. (I hope he can 'cherish every minute of free!') And, LOVE the John Oliver clip--hits the nail on the head!
ReplyDeleteI wrote about testing in the elementary school. Would love to hear your perspective on the types of questions elem. students here in Utah were asked. :)
Thanks for stopping by and sharing your response, Janiel. I'd be interested in reading your piece. Can you share a direct link? Florida used (or rented) much of Utah's assessment questions as the test was re-designed--the concept still startles me.
DeleteI loved John Oliver's piece, too - mostly because we suffered through the PARCC. There is no upside to testing our kids this way. None at all. My teaching heart breaks for our kids, and our profession.
ReplyDeleteI think "this way" --testing " this way" is the crux of it. I keeping thinking about what we want to know at the close of an instructional cycle and how the tests do or do not give us such information. At what cost are we grabbing at that data?
DeleteOne of the things that worries me most is that we now have teachers entering the profession who themselves know only the twisted "normal" of standardized testing, and the students we are graduating now have endured a life of standardized testing. I want to shout, "Stop the madness."
ReplyDeleteThe John Oliver segment is superb. He's my go-to-guy for cogent analysis of important issues, and even w/ his colorful language, I have no qualms about sending seniors to YouTube to view his analysis. He nails the standardized testing nonsense.
True, Glenda, I have been focused on students and their testing burdens, but the culture of the profession from the perspective of the newly graduated has certainly shifted. I keep thinking about empowerment and the disempowered and how centralized, standardized assessments can work both to empower and attempt to create equity of opportunity and disempower and narrow or shrink access to such opportunities. I'm glad Oliver's colorful language didn't put you off.
DeleteLee Ann, I hear your pain and wonder what will become of all of this. Long Island saw many opt outs of state testing at grades 3-8, so much so that we don't know how the school districts will be able to evaluate the role of curriculum on student growth. We are awaiting news. I often say that the testing decade from when the ELA tests in NYS started shifted attention from student-centered instruction to a test-driven culture.
ReplyDeleteDuring my PD workshops I focus on curriculum and what empowers students to be energized and thoughtful learners. Getting involved with test talk frustrates and drives the conversation to a negative place. I can only say that we need to wait this out to see where it all goes.
Carol, I find strength in sharing challenges. Were I doing a workshop session I would focus on items within teachers' control too (curriculum, classroom management, positive behavior systems and the like)--those do inspire. Focusing on the positive and not getting bogged down in the negative is an important emotional skill, but I don't think that means we have to silence our questions or not wonder what things mean.
DeleteIn WI we are experiencing some of that same feeling of having tests take over. It's especially obvious when computer labs and computers are booked for testing and can't be used for many, many weeks of the year. It's hard to stay positive in the face of so much teaching time being swallowed by testing.
ReplyDelete