state standards testing

Standardized tests were not written or intended for all students. This is sadly the insanity of politics that places this burden on you and your students.

I’d say this. I helped my students with their standardized tests. If no one is watching over your shoulder, as no one watched over mine, I was generous with support for them. If there were other accomodations that were clearly necessary, I’d offer those accomodations as the children took the tests. I read directions out loud - when I wasn’t supposed to - and gave extended time. I answered questions from students about questions on the test….

I want to say that I did this not because I wanted to raise my students’ scores but because I saw children painfully struggling with a task they should never have been asked to do.

We can only hope the current mania for standardized test scores passes away. Good luck to you and your children.

My sped department has been going round and round with our admin over this very issue. By nature of being LD a child isn’t going to be proficient, that is why they are receiving services. This is an unrealistic goal. If they were proficient - what is the purpose of sped services. If the accomodations they receive alter their scores to reflect a proficient reader then those are invalid. Some goofball doesn’t get it!

This kind of help resulted in the firing of administrators in my state. It distorted the results. It probably speaks louder to how ridiculous it is to use these tests for any real purpose - it turns people into “cheaters” in the name of help.

You miss the point of the standardized testing. It isn’t to prove that all kids are proficient. Rather, it is to see how good a job schools are doing at teaching kids. And I agree, administrators who allow what amounts to cheating on these tests should be fired for inflating their school’s scores, not the kids’ scores, the school’s scores.

It isn’t the kids who are being scored by these tests. It’s the schools and the curricula they are using.

And besides, you are doing parent a disservice to have them think that their child is performing at a proficient level on a test when you know that they are nowhere near able to perform at that level. Some parents, knowing their kids need help, will seek that help. Telling them the child is proficient may stop that from happening.

Standardized tests are not the end of the world. We’ve always had them. But now they’ve become high-stakes because people have legitimately become concerned about the quality of education (curricula?) in many schools. And, to the extent that school administrators focus on the tests themselves, instead of the overall curricula, they will find themselves failing in the long run.

As to the accuracy of the results and the how the results are used to plan for the future, that is a separate issue that requires large doses of common sense and experience.

On the other hand, when the students hit the streets looking for work they will find many employers using tests, too. They need the experience.

John

Dear Rod,
My original post was an attempt to bring my concern over the absurd legislation that forces learning disabled students to take a test that uses material above their reading level to a wider audience. I do agree with your comments about the original purpose of these state tests. However your statement that the tests do not test individual students is inaccurate. The passage below was taken off of a schools website. It clearly shows that individual students (including those with IEP’s) are being held accountable.
“According to the Pennsylvania Code Title 22, Chapter 4, § 4.24, new legislation has been enacted requiring that all students complete a project (see the “Graduation Project” section below) AND perform at the Proficient or Advanced level on the PSSA testing completed in 11th or 12th grade.”

Hi K,

I’m on a school board. There’s enough loopholes in these rigorous-sounding requirements that you could graduate a trained baboon with the right IEP, and with pretty good grades at that.
I am NOT disparaging the special ed kids here; I am just saying that the restrictions are not what they seem to be on first reading. I suspect this is true in PA also.

Are they being remediated in reading or math? That would be the only way that the kids will be able to pass.

I would be very careful of doing what you are doing. As per the ‘Leave No Child Behind’ legislation, all states have to continuously test the child to see if the school is making progress in teaching their students. If you inflate the scores by cheating on the accommodations, it will come out in a later year and they may come to you and ask why. I know teachers that have done what you did, they are called fired and can never get a job in teaching again. Remediation would be the answer by using reading programs that are based on research. This is what the government wants us to do.

As a parent it is very assuring to read Rod and Shay’s input. It is nice to know that there are people out there that believe my child can achieve with the right instructional help.I know my child will bomb and probably not complete her assessment test, but I want her to do it anyway so the school will at least try to get her up to standards. I don’t want to hear the school say ,”She’ll never be able to reach standard ,so why try.” Thanks to all you dedicated professionals.

I hate the state tests for many reasons, but I would never cheat. People are automatically fired for doing this. Our state wisely requires an administrator and proctor in every test room, so cheating is harder to do unless there is cooperation. I just do not think this is the way to help the kids. As Shay says, get training in good methods of remediation. Then parents must lobby to make alterations in the test system or diploma requirements.

I will say, because of the tests, people ARE noticing that special ed. kids (and some other sub-groups) are lagging behind academically and the state is beginning to look at best practices. In the long run, it may save a lot of kids. The downside is, there is obsession with teaching the test.

Janis

Well, our kids took the writing portions of the state tests in VA, the SOLs. The editing multiple choice test wasn’t too bad but the writing prompt was awful. They quoted Mark Twain and then said tell about a time that by helping others, it made you feel good. What a horrible prompt! It doesn’t lend itself to an essay, it lends itself to a story. These are 16 and 17 year olds, how many kids do you think have experiences like that? Even though the kids were angry about the prompt, I think that did a great job, now if the SOL committee feels the same??? The kids did do what we have been preaching for the past 3 months, prewriting, a draft, editing and then the final product. They were using the dictionary, some lived in it for three hours. If they didn’t pass, they can take it again next December and find out if they can graduate next February. I don’t know what we are going to do. This is one reason why we must demand that they remediate our sped kids using programs that work so that they can graduate with a standard diploma.
I also can say, in defense of this English SOL is that writing and reading is a life skill and every student needs to be proficient in English and the test is a good one. Yes, I teach to the test, but I would be teaching the material the same way do they should be tested on the areas of writing, reading comprehension and editing. No matter what job you go into, you need to be able to write and edit what you are writing before you send out reports or emails. I don’t need to go into why they should be able to comprehend, we discuss this enough. My only beef is that most schools are still into whole language land and these students come to us in 11th grade not knowing how to write a good sentence let alone a paragraph and we have to start at square one, ” This is how you write a good sentence”. I am not talking about my sped kids, I am talking about my regular ed academic kids!

It is the Shays, Rods, Victorias (not that you folks are anything less than unique and irreplaceable!) that keep me going as a parent! I agree totally…

I totally agree, Shay. There was some problem with our 4th grade writing test last year so they threw out all the scores. Writing tests are very subjective to grade, unfortunately. But definitely, reading and writing are basic skills that all children should be taught. Unfortunately, the math test goes beyond basic skills and gets into whole-language sytle math, so I can’t say I like that test at all. And you are absolutely right that some regular ed. kids will have difficulty with these tests. At least the testing has caused the schools to offer some tutoring for those kids who used to fall in the gap between low-average and special ed.

Janis