As we round the final turn for the end of the school year, I am
forced to again reflect on all of the TESTING that we require of our students.
I cannot help but ask why, what, how, who? Do not get me wrong, I do
think that assessments are vital part of the education system and that they do
have a place in monitoring the progress of our students...to an extent. Where I
get lost, is in the sheer quantity and magnitude of the tests that we give our
students.
In Maryland, students are
required to pass the course and pass the PARCC for Algebra 1 and for
English 10 (or PARCC aligned course). Students must also pass the course and pass the test for the Government HSA and
for Biology. Between now and the end of May, students in my school will be
taking these courses. The PARCC English Language Arts times for testing are 110
minutes, 110 minutes, and 90 minutes for Units 1-3 respectively. The PARCC Math
times are three units of 90 minutes each, to complete the exam. The HSAs are
usually broken into several 45 minute sections for each administration of the
test. The SAT is an entirely different exam that we require students
considering post-secondary education to take at least once and it covers
Reading, Writing and Language, Math and an optional essay component. From the Collegeboard website, "Eight Key Changes to the
SAT": Relevant Words in Context, Command of Evidence, Essay Analyzing a
Source, Focus on Math that Matters Most, Problems Grounded in Real-World
Contexts, Analysis in History/Social Studies and in Science, and U.S. Founding
Documents and the Great Global Conversation...are all areas that are covered by
the SAT - which is another 3 hours and 50 minutes of testing for our
children/students.
An article FOUND HERE by the New Brunswick Patch in New Jersey in
2013, quoted the College Board as having a $200,000,000 revenue and a
$62,000,000 profit in 2013. The profits are listed as 317% of the industry
average, and Gaston Caperton (former West Virginia Governor) was brought on
board to increase profits, making $1.3million in 2012. David Coleman, president
of the company, was making $550,000 in 2013and the College Board's executives
were making an average of $355,271 per year. Pearson, on the other hand,
creators of PARCC was a company reported in this FORBES
ARTICLE, is a $8.2 billion revenue company - with 60% of its sales being in
North America. Assessing students through high school, grew to a cost of $2.5
billion (a growth of 57% from 2012-2015). In 2015 the owner cut $15
million in costs and 4000 jobs, purchased Brazil's Grupo Multi chain of English
learning centers for $721 million. Pearson gave its chief executive John Fallon
a 20% raise in 2016 (see article), with the base salary going from $995,763 in
2015 to $1,000,896 in 2016 as a base salary, but the real bonus came in with
incentive pay - adding $440,137 to his salary.
There are so many questions to
gleam from all of this:
1) Why do these executives,
make so much money on the backs of the students that have to sit through these
excruciating exams, repeatedly and redundantly?
2) Why do students have to take
and pass both PARCC/HSAs and take an SAT/ACT? One tells Maryland that the
students have achieved a specific level and the other tells
colleges/universities that students have/are capable of achieving a certain
level.
3) Why isn't the SAT/ACT enough
to use as this measuring tool? Allow students to begin taking it in 11th grade
and offer it up to four times, and allow a mandatory minimum grade to earn a
high school diploma, while also using the scores as college admittance exams?
OR
Use the PARCC/HSA exams as the
benchmark of level of learning and capability (aptitude) and scrap the SAT/ACT
exams?
Here is the real question: So a
student sits for and takes the Algebra 1 PARCC assessment in 8th or 9th grade
presumably. When he/she does "OK"; not great, not poor...what
is done with that information? Are those students remediated in a summer school
course, evening school course, additional period after school each day? During
lunch each day?
What becomes of that
information? The student is going to be enrolled in Geometry the following year
(in Maryland anyway), so what becomes of that average score? What information
can be gleaned from that that makes the colleges/universities feel
good/bad/indifferent about the student's mathematical prowess? What does the
local school system do with that information to specifically improve that
student's score? What is the actual value of the score, other than being used
by state, local, and national education department "powers that be"
to compare that student to the 8th/9th grader who took it last year, or who
will take it next year, or who took it in a different classroom, school, state
--- this year? And what is the score's impact on the child's future?
So many questions and so few
people who take the time to answer them, to honestly consider them, and think
outside of the box....what are we gleaning from the scores, stress, and lost
classroom instructional time? What do we gain by having teachers teach to
tests, worried about their evaluation being effected by students' scores? Can
we push pause, step back, get some of the more progressive and brilliant
EDUCATORS involved in these decision? PLEASE?
