Skip to main content

Testy

In the eight years that I haven't been in the classroom, I've watched and listened to all the dialogue about the encroachment of standardized testing.  In particular is something called the "Smarter Balanced" assessment tests that are being given in my community.  While the newspaper editorialists and many local politicos tout them as necessary and a significant, valid measure of what our students can and cannot do, those in the classroom are either silent and compliant, or condoning the virtues of non-compliance with these high stakes tests.  In fact, the head of the Portland Assn. of Teachers recently said: Abuse,  can be "the result of cruel and unconscionable acts that impair a child's psychological, cognitive, emotional and or social well-being" such as from "habitual ridicule" or "scapegoating." She questioned whether low-income or non-English-speaking students would be subjected to harassment if their school fares poorly in test results.
I've even heard some teachers calling themselves "conscientious objectors" when it comes to participating in the administration of these tests.  I see that parallel because, as an educator, everything that these challenging tests purport to be about is antithetical to what I believe and know to be excellent teaching.  Start with the 70% failure rate being predicted.  That tickles the "if it's harder, it must be better" fancy of those who claim to be experts on this issue.  Notice that they aren't in the classroom.  They have , or at least seem to have, no rigorous curriculum in use with which to compare their ideas of what is challenging and most important.  The are in love, in my view, with the idea of collecting data that shows schools are failing.  They are not, I assure you.  How do I know this?  I know this because every year students that leave our institutions of public instruction are doing well in college or their chosen professions.  I know this because I have the luxury of remaining in contact with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of former students, and I can see how they are doing.  But that was then, you might ask.  True, it's different now, it's always different a decade or so later.  With the disparity in wealth that is the new reality we face, there is no longer the certainty that a good education will be rewarded with a job or career that's equally as satisfying.  Maybe those test makers and corporations so giddy over the elevated place they have come to occupy in the school calendar know this.  Maybe, aside from tapping into that billion dollar industry, they are already beginning the training for the only jobs that will be available to most of those kids taking their tests.
That's all conjecture, I know.  But what is not is the fact that rigor and rigormortis aren't all that far apart.  As many students would say, "you're killin' me."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

To a Tee

 I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt.  They are the foundational garment of my life.  My day starts with selecting a t-shirt and it ends with sleeping in one.  Once thought of as under garments, t-shirts are now original art and no doubt, a billion dollar business.   You can get a t-shirt with anybody's picture displayed.  You can commemorate an event, a birthday, a death, even a specular play in any sport.  Family reunions usually have a commemorative t-shirt.  Also, any organization that solicits your support in the form of a donation is likely to offer you a t-shirt. Where once I only had the basic white t-shirt, my drawers are filled with all manner of colorful choices.  Some recognize major events in my life, some, spectacular performances or plays I have witnessed, and some unforgettable places I have been.   I say I'm a sucker for a good t-shirt because I have taken the bait on what I perceived as a must-have only to be disappointed. ...

Body Language

I'm sitting there in a hospital gown, waiting for my doctor to complete my yearly physical.  This is when I look at everything on the walls, read the medical posters, the instructions on any equipment in the room, look in every corner and behind every chair.  I study the paper on the examination table, laugh out loud at the picture of a smiling child holding a bouquet of broccoli, and the note the placement of the computer in the room. Finally, wondering if the gown I'm wearing is on correctly, I focus on myself.  At this point in my life I'm fairly comfortable in a doctor's office.  But it always seems to take so long when waiting for the doc to enter.  So I fidget.  Then I begin a tour of myself.  Scars are tattoos.  I look at the one on my knee and see myself at 12.  Whittling a piece of wood with my Boy Scout jack knife.  The blade slips and I cut a crescent slash through my jeans and into my flesh for life.  50 years later ...

Sex, Religion, and Politics

Watching TV to keep up with the news is like going to a party.  Sex, religion and politics, in any order.  Those are the topics of choice.  We hear about "twerking," and are confronted with all manner of exhibitionism in local news.  Should women be wearing yoga pants in non-yoga areas.  The office, the workplace, school, church...and that's just the teachers! Religion encroaches in all the right places.  Christian Mingle, the online dating service pops up on the screen during the grisliest of crime shows, the politician's speeches and the sit-coms so full of sexual innuendo that every second of canned laughter barely hides the grins, the gasps, the outcries, or the mindless guffaws. So what's the message?  Are we a society and culture in decline or just rapidly changing?  Probably both.  I recall a student once coming to school with a most offensive tee shirt.  Offensive in that the cartoon image on the front made it impossible for hi...