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I sometimes feel like I'm posting in a vacuum.
This is an excellent piece, and I'm happy to give it a :kick: and recommend it.
Here's a <snip> for those who don't click on the link:
It must be said at the outset: standardized testing has muscled its way onto the educational stage in very short order. In little more than a decade, the frequency and number of stan-dardized tests has doubled and redoubled in response to public concern about the quality of high school graduates, and thus, the effectiveness of public schools. In 2005, 11 million exams were added in elementary and middle schools; another 11 million tests for high school science are expected to bring the national total to near 50 million by 2008, amid signs that the quality, reliability and validity of exams are eroding.4 (Fairtest puts the total of all tests—including I.Q., screening and readiness at 100 million; that does not include the ACT or SAT college entrance exams.5) The rapidity of standardized testing’s ascent means that few teachers are well-versed in its language, terms or accepted uses as most teachers’ educational programs did not include such coursework.6 Ignorance, however, is not a defense; not in legal venues, nor should it be in education circles. It is my thesis that teachers’ collective ignorance around standardized testing must change— and change quickly—if we are to preserve our autonomy and professional status as educators. The entire gestalt of the “accountability” movement holds that teachers are not to be trusted or believed when it comes to student learning. Even grades, acquired over the length of a semester are presumed suspect: subjective, inadequate measures which do not allow direct comparison across the domain in a cohort.7 For many outside critics of education, only a standard test can reveal the “truth” about what transpires in classrooms, and, thus, successful teaching is reduced to a single, narrow measure on a multiple choice instrument. Ultimately, such a system makes teaching the provision of defined information inputs— synonymous to a functionary responsible for conducting transactions on behalf of some distant monolith. And when the numbers rolling off the computer print-out appear unsatisfactory to those in authority? They will have their justification to take public education private8, where due process, labor agreements and unions are not barriers to the prerogatives of management. If that dystopic future alarms you as much as it does me, then I urge that you learn more about standardized testing (start by reading this article) and commit to sharing it with students, parents and the larger community. At this point in education history, teachers are the last best hope for preserving not only the autonomy of local schools, but the very meaning and essence of American democracy.9
I will say that while my teacher education program did not include classes on standardized testing, my BA in social sciences did. Just one course in Psychological Measurement, but it was enough. When high-stakes testing came to my state, pre-NCLB, I took my concerns to my professor, who also happened to be the psychologist for the district I was teaching in. He confirmed my concerns about the high-stakes attached to our norm-referenced tests. When I brought the concerns up with admins and school board members, they patted me on the head and told me that I didn't understand the complicated stuff the "experts" were doing with formulas to guarantee us a reliable result. When I persisted, my principle said, if you can believe it, "But even if the results aren't reliable and valid, they will still be consistent and can still be used as a measure of accountability." :wow:
My colleagues were silent. Peter Henry is correct; they were not well-versed in the language, terms, or accepted uses of standardized tests. They did, however, see clearly that the test scores would be a weapon used against them. They were, frankly, intimidated.
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