The Anxiety of Test Taking

Dear Miller-McCune,Please visit sbschooltalk.com to assist our society to expose school corruption, reform education, and restore justice in our schools and communities.There is an Education-Politico-Industrial Complex and there is an unholy alliance between the schools, Juvenile Justice, politicos, and non-profits.The School to Prison Pipeline (googleable) is institutionalized racism and child abuse.Here is Cheri Rae from Santa Barbara’s Daily Sound:http://www.thedailysound.com/cherirae/042309cheriLesson for the Week: Stressing Testing By CHERI RAE — April 23, 2009Springtime rituals are usually associated with rebirth, renewal and joyous affirmations of life. In recent weeks many of us have observed sacred religious traditions; acknowledged our commitment to environmental stewardship; and tomorrow, on Arbor Day, we may even speak for the trees. It’s a time of wonderment, exuberant exploration, celebration of natural rhythms, and free-spirited self-expression. Unless you’re a public school student in California, grades 2 through 11, subjected to the annual rite of spring known as STAR testing—about as rigid, mechanistic and unnatural as it gets. For several days this week, and for some into next, these kids are standardized and quantified, evaluated and calculated. They’re instructed to get lots of sleep, eat a good breakfast, and perform well on the battery of tests. In the testing room, they’re subject to varying degrees of not-so-subtle pressure about the importance of their scores; time and again they’re exhorted to do their best because so much depends on these numbers. The results will assess how well students, schools and districts perform at levels considered Advanced, Proficient, Basic, Below Basic or Far Below Basic. In short, it’s a time of great stress, not great learning; of great expectations, not great intellectual leaps forward. This assessment obsession justifies the existence of a lucrative testing industry, but just what it’s teaching our children is debatable. In 2008, some 4.75 million California students took the STAR tests. STAR stands for Standardized Testing and Reporting. It’s all about accountability demanded by the State’s Academic Performance Index and the Federal Adequate Yearly Progress measurement. The numbers determine everything from student achievement to teachers’ standing to school funding. All this emphasis on “accountability” in schools makes me wonder how any given group of adults in their workplaces would score on the job if they were subjected to annual standardized testing and expected to make measurable improvement each year—subject to negative consequences like salary cuts, loss of perks or outright termination. As an advocate for alternative, experiential education and a proponent of getting children out of the classroom and into the natural world, this emphasis on quantification of learning strikes me both as impossible and improbable. To my way of thinking, these narrow, multiple choice tests assess how well students have learned to take a test—not academic achievement—and they reveal how well the teachers have learned to tailor their lessons, homework assignments and “test prep” in the classroom to develop testable skills. As a mother, I’m far more interested in the development of qualities that can’t be tested and quantified. Standardized tests don’t measure a child’s character, compassion or curiosity; they can’t evaluate leadership qualities, or provide insight into a child’s motivation, creativity or willingness to take on big challenges, test limits or independently and persistently seek answers to important questions. Years ago, one of my daughter’s teachers once reflected—unforgettably—on her perspective on teaching and learning. “I’m not teaching her for results tomorrow,” explained, “I’m teaching her for the kind of person she’s going to be when she’s in her thirties. It will all come together in time.” But these days a lot of high-level decision-makers are in a real hurry to qualify and quantify, with too little thought about the human consequences. They expect—demand—measurable improvement in standardized tests in one year’s time, and suffer penalties if the results of the test don’t measure up to expectations. With all this emphasis on testing, there’s no time for programs that aren’t assessed and don’t add up to enhance a school’s numbers. And many parents are in a hurry, too. Plenty of over-achieving moms and dads are willing to spend a fortune on programs designed to teach their infants to read and truly believe they’re helping improve future academic performance by propping wee ones in front of the latest in baby-oriented programming. To them, it sounds like irresponsible parenting to deliberately give children time and space to mature before pushing academia and evaluation. But from what I’ve learned of the innovative work and philosophical grounding of educators like Rudolf Steiner who founded the complex pedagogy of the Waldorf Schools; Howard Gardner with his theory of multiple intelligences (embraced by Santa Barbara Charter School); and Alexander Sutherland Neill, who developed the Summerhill School model of “Freedom, Not License” (the inspiration behind Open Alternative School), there’s clearly more than one way to educate a child. Introducing material when it’s developmentally appropriate; determining the individual child’s best way of learning, and delivering the lessons in that manner; placing emphasis on personal and social development—and yes, not testing students exhaustively—are all hallmarks of another road to knowledge, one that might lead to easier passages to adulthood and happier, more fulfilled individuals emboldened to pursue their talents and their passions. Somehow, some way, we have to figure out how to untangle the unholy alliance between education and politics that in the name of “accountability” requires quantifying human academic performance incessantly in order to keep the cycle going. It was taken to a new level with George W. Bush’s widely derided and largely unfunded “No Child Left Behind” program which some refer to as “No Child Left Untested.” (There’s actually a contest to rename the program—with some very funny entries—at HYPERLINK “http://www.eduwonk.com/2009/02/a-contest-name-that-law.html” http://www.eduwonk.com/2009/02/a-contest-name-that-law.html. My favorite: “Act to Help Children Read Gooder.”) But renaming isn’t enough; re-working is required. I suggest we start by figuring out why we’re largely ignoring the findings of so many brilliant researchers, educators and philosophers who stress education not just for the head, but the heart as well. They recognize that it’s the unquantifiable passion, commitment and creativity that individual teachers—bless them all—bring to the classroom that inspires students to reach their potential. When the goal of conformity to “standards” extinguishes that special spark in both teachers and students—and I’ve heard from enough teacher friends to know it does—proficient test scores might be achieved, but at the expense of knowledge and a lifelong love for learning. It’s about time we learn that stressing standardized testing as the sole evaluation tool on which to gauge “progress” just isn’t very smart.