Standardized Testing
June 1st, 2007I know I’m not the first teacher to rail against state mandated testing, but allow me to chime in with my observations of the juniors forced to take the NECAP test last week. Just so we all know what we’re doing to our kids.
Juniors, for anyone not aware, take at least four standardized tests throughout the course of the year. That’s a great deal, considering that each mandates at least three hours of time taken away from the classroom and probably even more given that the kids are useless for the rest of the day. I’m not going to get anything out of them following a testing period.
This—and more—has all been stated before. But I figure I’d share what happened in room A2, from 9:12 to 9:45am on Tuesday, May 22. That is new.
I walked into the room and the twenty juniors randomly gathered there looked up, begging for excitement. Instead, they got me. They were already done, and were waiting for permission to go onto the next section. At least, most of them were. One girl in the front row was still manfully struggling to accomplish whatever feat was required of her.1
In ten minutes, a disembodied voice came over the intercom and told them to move onto the next section of the paper. They did so, but not before there was a chorus of complaints and questions of “why must we do this?” and “this sucks” and “this is crap.”
I pointed out that this was necessary, until one student asked whether or not this would affect them personally. I said I wasn’t sure, and most decided at that point that if it didn’t directly affect them, then why bother?2
They then asked why they were being forced to do the work, and I pointed out there was no way we could do anything about it, but that the real people they should be complaining to were in Concord and in Washington DC.
They immediatialy thrilled at the idea, and quickly aborted any semblance of trying. They spent the remainder of the shift writing letters to their elected representatives. I can’t wait to see how bad these scores are, and whether anyone in our respective capitals will realize just how impossible it is to tell what a kid know by a test.
We’re dealing with young people, not idiots. They’re too smart to be fooled into working hard if there’s no gain for them.
1 I have no way of knowing if she was a careful student trying her best and the rest were done because they cared less, or she a slow student who needed more time. These are the types of questions we can answer as teachers in the classroom when we give a test, and conduct ourselves accordingly. It’s nice to know when to hush a class because they aren’t doing their best or to let them take their head since they did their best.
2 Before anyone asks, I don’t lie to kids. If I can’t talk about something I’ll say that, and if it’s none of their business, I’ll say that. However, it’s clear when a teacher lies, and once you do it, it’s over. Besides, do we really want a world where even the person in the front of the room can’t display some integrity?
