Too Much Pressure

The stakes are high when it comes to financial and government support of schools. The state of Virginia has lately become very familiar with these stakes.


Bid to Waive Middle School Scores Rejected
Superintendents Fear That Surprisingly Low Pass Rates Will Hinder Accreditation
By Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 7, 2006; Page B10

The Virginia Board of Education this week denied requests from local officials to shield middle schools from fallout from unexpected low scores on last spring's state math tests. The board's decision, disclosed yesterday, rebuffed appeals from several superintendents, including Edgar B. Hatrick III of Loudoun County.

In a letter to the superintendents, board President Mark E. Emblidge wrote that a new state law barred any move to withhold past test results from the calculations used to rate schools. Therefore, he wrote, schools must adapt. "I am confident that the lessons learned by all of us from the 2005-2006 test will result in higher student achievement this year," he wrote.

Pressure is high for educators to raise standardized test scores. In Virginia, 51 percent of sixth-graders and 44 percent of seventh-graders passed last spring's math tests. Pass rates help determine whether schools receive state accreditation, a distinction that signifies they have met minimum standards.

Seventy-one percent of middle schools statewide gained full accreditation this year, down from 83 percent last year. Nearly three-quarters of middle schools failed solely because of math scores, the state Department of Education reported. Schools that fail to meet benchmarks for three consecutive years are denied accreditation and must work with the state to raise scores."

For the full article, click here; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/06/AR2006100601435.html?nav=rss_education

So it seems that once a school is labeled "unfit" by national standards, they not only score low on the tests, but they are dropped deeper into a hole which they will have to struggle by not being accredited. This can only be seen as an ineffective and unreasonable way to improve our public education.

The fact that the Board of Education hopes that teachers and administrators will see this as motivation to improve for next year is absurd. If the scores are lower than last year, wouldn't it make sense for them to have been motivated this year? It is a downward spiral with good intentions, but is poorly executed and has proven yet to be successful.

These national tests, along with all NCLB policies, seem to be nothing but hurting the public school systems. Cutting funds, changing curriculums at a fast pace, and introducing new and more advanced concepts to be tested by students comes at a cost the U.S. is not ready to pay.

".."We need time to figure out what happened," Hatrick said yesterday. "The results were so inconsistent with everything else students were doing."

Evaluation and development of determing a students' ability and level in the educational system needs to be completely re-thought and revised. Only then will students be given a fair chance to be taught in a truly enriching learning environment.

The Need for Speed.

In elementary and secondary schools, promptness of reading has always been emphasized by the educators. When students take reading tests, such as the MEAP, they are timed and unallowed to give themselves time to make meaningful connections in what they read.Many teachers attempt to test childrens fluency at reading by using charts which show how many words per minute the student is able to read. This is contradicting to what many people believe reading to be all about. Many teachers attempt to test childrens fluency at reading by using charts which show how many words per minute the student is able to read.

In Quest for Speed, Books Are Lost on Children

By Valerie Strauss

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 24, 2006; Page A10

Your fourth-grader is galloping through Lois Lowry's utopian novel "The Giver," and you marvel at her reading speed.

Stop marveling. Most likely she has little idea what the book actually means.

In many classrooms around the country, teachers are emphasizing, and periodically testing, students' reading fluency, the current buzzword in reading instruction. The problem is that speed isn't the only element to fluency, educators said. Key elements are also accuracy and expressiveness.

"The food was delectable" is different from "the food was detestable," and Shakespeare should not sound like a chemistry textbook.

It is a complicated process teaching students to recognize enough words and read at a consistent rate so they can spend their time concentrating on meaning rather than decoding, educators said. And when tackling a book such as "The Giver," one that deals with a boy's discovery that his utopian world comes at the expense of the stifling of intellectual and emotional freedom, meaning is critical.

"Fluent readers are readers who know how to dig into a book and pull out just what they are looking for -- whether it is information, a part with strong language, a part with good character development, or just a chance to read for fun," said Susan Marantz, a longtime teacher now at a suburban school in Columbus, Ohio.

As a result, some kids are motivated to read only to beat a test clock, he and other researchers said.

"Are kids responding well to fluency exercises?" asked Kylene Beers, a senior reading researcher at Yale University's School Development Program and chairwoman of the National Adolescent Literacy Coalition.

"The more important question to ask is: Are teachers focusing on all three parts of fluency?" Beers, vice president-elect of the National Council of Teachers of English, wrote in an e-mail. "When fluency is only about building automaticity (and therefore speed), then some [teachers] do mistakenly believe that the point of reading is fast decoding. That's no more the best measure of a skilled reader than fast driving is the best measure of skilled driver."

"They read so fast, with no punctuation and no expression, that we'd go back and ask comprehension questions and they weren't very successful answering them. They hadn't understood what they read," he said.

"It all comes down to the teacher," he said. "It's people, not programs."

This is just another way of ‘standardizing’ the experience many young people have in education. Instead of focusing on content and connections, students are told that the faster the better. Sometimes faster is better, when doing a math problem, spelling a word, or when needing to complete a test. Reading is reduced to a inferior level of objectivity.

This is also a direct way that teachers can form their pupils' reading skills. Not interrupting the student during their reading, pausing in between readings to help students understand the material, and helping them make personal connections to their own lives and worlds around them.

What type of culture?

To begin to talk about standardized testing that takes place in the educational system, you must also talk about politics and policymakers. Testing has become a benchmark to provide satisfaction for the politicians and citizens who believe it to show trends, progress, and highlight areas in need of improvement. Although research shows that this often not true, the United States has re-focused itself in becoming a test-based educational society. A society where to achieve and be successful, you must also be a good test taker.


The Rise of the Testing Culture
As Exam-Takers Get Younger, Some Say Value Is Overblown
By Valerie StraussWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, October 10, 2006; Page A09

"...Kids get tested and labeled as soon as they get into kindergarten," said [Kisha] Lee, who runs the state-certified Alternative Preschool Solutions in Accokeek. "They have to pass a standardized test from the second they get in. I saw kindergartners who weren't used to taking a test, and they fell apart, crying, saying they couldn't do it. The child who can sit and answer the questions correctly is identified as talented," Lee said. "It hurts me to have to do this, but it hurts the kids if I don't."

So it seems we are not actually testing the material, the intelligence, or even the cumulative knowledge of the child, but their ability to recall information in a controlled setting. This is hardly what standardized testing is claiming it does. Testing at such a young age seems that it would prove fruitless. Assuming that all young children have the ability to understand how to take a test is absurd.

"...We are obsessed with tests," said Occidental University education professor Ron Solorzano, who used to teach in Los Angeles public schools. "We are pretty much preparing [kids] for the SAT at the age of 6," added Solorzano, who also worked at the Educational Testing Service, the world's largest private educational testing and measurement organization. Americans embrace tests because they are entranced with objectivity -- or at least the appearance of it, experts say.

For the full article, click here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100900925.html

A study coinciding with this article showed that 71% of teachers believed that there was too much testing in schools. Compared that to 17% of parents believing the same, there is a gap in communication between the two groups. If parents were aware of how teachers felt about testing and felt about spending weeks teaching to the test, i believe it would spark conversation and questions about the "necessary" testing.