Goldring and Berends (2009) state that standardized tests and formative assessments should be teamed up to provide a clear idea how the child is progressing academically. In a perfect world. I would agree, but in a NCLB world, I have to smother a snide snicker. Personally, I don’t see a great deal of this happening.

I have the pleasure of going to many different schools to supervise student teachers, and I have to say, I am so impressed with what I am seeing. My student teachers, guided by excellent cooperating educators, are coming up with wonderfully creative formative assessments that give the students hands-on, authentic learning. I leave the observation with goose bumps because the learning is so infectious and fun. I learn new stuff every time I visit.

Formative assessments guild much of their teaching and it’s obvious that the children are learning. It gives me hope for the future of education. Then reality smacks me upside my head. According to the big picture of modern education, all of this wonderful teaching is at the mercy of that end of the year monster…. The High Stakes Standardized Assessment. It’s a shame. You can produce awesome formative assessments and get kids excited about learning, but sometimes… it just doesn’t help.

True story: One of my student teachers was talking with a boy who was working on some math problems. This boy was very intelligent, but had some emotional issues. He told this teacher “. . . even if I do good on all my daily work it doesn’t mean anything because I’ll only go on to the next grade if I pass the CRCT.” He’s right! My question is why does an elementary child have to worry about this in the first place? Young children should not suffer anxiety, depression, and health issues because of one lousy test.

How can this be improved?

Allow teachers to use formative assessments that have real meaning.

Use authentic assessment and portfolios to document learning.

Use standardized assessments as a part of the puzzle, and not the determining factor.


What challenges do we face?

No Child Left Behind, politicians, the media, members of the public who have been conditioned to think that a school grade, and a child passing a high-stakes assessment equates to real learning. People keeping silent does not help much either. I realize people fear for their jobs and stay quiet, and I know there are millions of educators and administrators who think our current form of test manic education is the wrong thing to do. If you can't speak out loud, start an anonymous blog… be loud and heard. If enough folks do this, attention will be paid.


Reference

Goldring, E. and Berends, M. (2009). Leading with data: Pathways to improve your school. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.
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Keeping Up With The Joneses

Girden (2001) writes that the general idea of Standard-Based Reform would set standards for every student regardless of one’s personal background or the particular location of his or her school. I don't see much to argue with here, but the text went on to say. That such accountability provides flexibility to schools that “. . . would permit them to make the instructional and structural changes needed for the students to reach the standards" (p. 27).

I have to say, that in my particular corner of the world, this last statement is pure fantasy. I have yet to see how standardized assessment provided one iota of flexibility to the curriculum, especially when it involves students who are doing poorly on the endless succession of benchmark testing, reassessments, etc. This, it seems, cuts down flexibility to a trickle, if that.

It would be interesting to see a case study which uses authentic assessment in such a way that each standard is accessible to each child in ways that prove that she or he understands and can generalize the principals of the standard. These standards would be reached via a plethora of student work that capitalizes on his or her learning style and multiple intelligences. Results (proof) would be stored in a portfolio that moves each year with the student.

Unfortunately, folks tend to be driven by data, even if that data reflects some ambiguous percentile on some ambiguous assessment. We have a need to compare, contrast, and see how we are comparing to the Joneses. Well, sometimes the way Jones operates doesn't work particularly well for Smith.

Taking data using authentic assessment would provide rich qualitative information such as student feelings about their accomplishments, the difficulty of the tasks, the relevancy of the task/standard to his or her life, and so on. The results of these qualitative data could easily provide quantitative results too. Example: 65% of the student who chose to do a class speech on the Civil War as their final grade project, covered all expectations listed in the syllabus.

Authentic education just makes sense.