By, Emma Janas
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Through the process of meeting with my group and discussing the different impacts that standardized testing has had on our lives, I learned a lot about the negativity and stress these tests have brought to us throughout the years. The chapters in the book that we focused on, Time to Get Off the Testing Train, Authentic Assessment for Learning, 14 days SBAC Took Away, and Testing Assumptions focus on the negative effects that putting the pressure of standardized tests on children has on them.
The first chapter, Time to Get Off the Testing Train focuses on the different routes of learning students can take such as art and poetry instead of testing, and it also describes the point that standardized tests are not accurate and can be impacted based on a child’s stress levels and lack of motivation. Lastly, it discusses how the purpose of standardized test is not to improve teaching and learning, but rather to collect data of students test scores.
The next chapter, Authentic Assessment For Learning talks about the different alternatives to standardized tests, such as portfolio-based assessments, performance assessments, exhibitions, student-led-parent-teacher conferences, and school wide assignments. These different and authentic assignments allow students to reflect on their work and what they have learned throughout the year, observe classrooms and curriculum and form a report with recommendations for improvement, and students can even present their accomplishments to their parents.
The next chapter, 14 Days SBAC Took Away talks about a teacher and her thoughts on how standardized tests take away learning opportunities from children, as the SBAC took 14 days away from the students in her classroom in order for them to focus on their testing instead of continuous learning. The teacher in this chapter describes her hatred towards standardized testing and the different ways that students react when having to take these tests, with complaining and lack of motivation.
The last chapter, Testing Assumptions is the one that I primarily focused on. In this chapter, several men and women who were beyond fed up with the standardized testing system gathered at the entrance of the Rhode Island Department of Education entrance to protest the use of high stake testing and it’s “zombifying effects it is having on our state’s young people”. This chapter then focuses on The Providence Student Union (PSU) which is an organization that begun protesting against high stakes test in Rhode Island in 2012 when RIDE began implementing a new testing based grading requirement which was that students had to score high enough on the New England Common Assessment Program to receive a diploma, regardless of their grade point average in school. So, the PSU created the “take the test” event where they gathered as many successful people possible such as, state senators, accomplished attorneys, and even an NBC news anchor to take the standardized test, and when they did this, a full 60 percent of the people who participated did not score high enough to graduate under Rhode Island’s high stake testing graduation requirement. This shows that even some of the most successful, accomplished officials were not able to pass the tests, so why should young children have too.
When my LC group and I met, we tried to figure out a way that we could alter something in our classmates brains to let them think back to the times when they had to take standardized tests. So, we decided what better way than to give them an actual mock standardized test. We had them sit down in the classroom and put there phones away, slapped a test down in front of them and told them that they were not allowed to say a word. We gave them a certain amount of time that they had to complete it in. We then asked them what they felt about the test we had just given them, and they responded that it brought them back to the anxiety, and stress that taking standardized tests as children brought them. We then told them to crumble up the tests and throw them out, because a piece of paper or test does not determine how knowledgable you are. Then at the end of our lesson after describing each chapter to our classmates, we also asked them to write out a letter of what they would say to the creators of standardized testing and the whole entire class wrote feedback such as, “I believe your form of measuring student knowledge is not accurate”, and “The amount of stress, boredom, anxiety and mental fatigue that your tests have given us is unreal”.
Overall, my LC group chose to emphasize on the idea that standardized tests are poor measures of student achievement and do not reflect knowledge about learning, and there are several alternatives to testing such as school wide assignments or portfolio based assignments. Our responsibility as a group was to describe that the score that you get on a test does not reflect who you are as a student or person. I believe that our LC2 group along with our classmates all were able to come to the conclusion that standardized tests are pointless and cause anxiety for students that is unneeded.
Emma 