Test score gains, considered
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As the mayoral-control debate escalates here and in Albany, a parallel conversation is simmering locally, about the city’s recent rise in standardized test scores.
Two Daily News articles set a strong counterpoint: Last week, columnist Juan Gonzalez challenged the gains touted by the Department of Education, asserting that poor children lack the opportunity for achievement that many others have — and that charters, which enroll far fewer English language learners and special-needs students, benefit from their exclusionary policies. Gonzales concludes, “…when something looks too good to be true, it usually is. ”
Today, big jumps in reading scores are celebrated in the News — but a principal’s explanation of how her school improved test scores is chillingly revealing: “What really helped us was looking at our data and driving the instruction based on that,” Principal Lillian Catalano, a 23-year public school veteran, told the News. School officials “spent hours scouring” students’ work on previous assessments to figure out “where they needed help … on the statewide reading test,” the article explains.
Simply put, this principal and her faculty embraced the data — and upped their scores by ‘teaching to the test.’ They figured out what kids needed to know to do better, and they taught it. But teaching to the test necessarily takes time from other subjects; it limits what a school can offer, and what a teacher can teach. And it doesn’t mean kids are actually learning to think for themselves or master content outside the testing area. Historically, teaching to the test was universally considered a bad thing, but tables turn, and today, it’s lauded. Schools that do the best job of sussing out what the testers want gain the most praise and public recognition; progress reports, based largely on a school’s test scores, can determine a principal’s tenure and even a school’s survival.
It’s hard to argue with a principal who sees the importance of raising scores. The bigger question is what’s lost when the focus-field narrows — when data, scores, and testing outpace content in the classroom.
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Teaching for the best should not be viewed as inherently bad. I actually think it’s a great idea– provided that the test is a comprehensive representation of the information we expect students to have after leaving that course/grade.
This is New York– teaching to the test is precisely what our entire high school curriculum is based on for years. Sure, I was drilled on certain math topics to get a near perfect score on both Math A and Math B, but I was easily prepared for calculus and success in high level courses in college because what I learned matched the expectation of the course.
Let’s not forget that if it were not a “standardized” test, most classrooms these days would still be using an exam, and therefore, even free from the “burden” of a standardized exam, these classrooms would still be teaching to a test, it would just be their test and not the state’s.
Comment by Jason — May 13, 2009 @ 12:40 pm
My son’s 6th grade class WAS being taught to the test. I say WAS because now that the state tests are over, there is a laziness from the teacher who was quite overbearing before the test. These days, homework is 45 minutes instead of the 2 hours prior to teaching.
Comment by Me2004 — May 13, 2009 @ 2:23 pm
There is a difference between test prep and teaching to the test. Teaching to a test prevents children from fully developing their cognitive skills. It also leads to boredom, burnout and disengagement from academic studies (which I have seen in many, many students in the past 5 years or so). I have also met middle school students who identify themselves as being a number, e.g. “I’m a 3 in math.” Is this the legacy we want to give our youth, that a number from 1-4 can identify who you are??
Comment by Bronx mom — May 13, 2009 @ 2:27 pm
Now that my child is starting to think about high school, I have found a big problem with teaching to the test. Teaching to the math test, as mentioned in comment one, is probably a good thing, because this is the material the kids need to know for later courses. The problem comes with the ELA test. The city bases its test largely on comprehension and listening skills. If your kid is not a good listener, gets distracted for a moment, or can’t take notes fast he is doomed on this portion. We have been looking into the TACHs test for catholic high schools and their ELA is totally different. It is mostly spelling, vocabulary, definitions and lots of grammar. All subjects that my son has spent very little time learning during his last 7 years in school because they are not the focus of the state test. It is obvious we are not giving our children a very well rounded education.
Comment by parent — May 13, 2009 @ 4:34 pm
My child’s teacher stated at curriculum night that they would not be teaching social studies as they needed to devote more time to test prep.
Comment by joe — May 14, 2009 @ 11:42 am
a long as learning is going on i am all for it parents need to take charge and stop thinking teaching and learning only happens in school
Comment by proud parent — May 14, 2009 @ 1:34 pm
My child goes to Lower Lab, which had some of the highest scores in the City on the ELA. While these high scores can certainly be attributed partly to the highly selected gifted population and to the high quality of teaching at the school, a large part is certainly due to the massive amount of test prep to which our children have been subjected. It is a huge waste of the teachers’ talents and a major drain on our 7- to 11-year-olds time! My child’s teacher, arguably one of the most talented at one of the best elementary schools in the City, told parents straight out that test prep for the ELA does not involve teaching excellent writing skills; it’s all about answering the question to the letter in a very basic, straightforward way. Advanced analysis is not welcome and can result in downgrading. As a past test grader, she said she had read many test answers that clearly showed a child to be a very talented writer, but which didn’t follow the “formula” required by the test and therefore received low scores.
After the math test, my child said to me, “Now we can go back to having regular math homework.” I realized that during the weeks of test prep, virtually all the math they were assigned consisted of practice questions and tests in the test prep book.
In addition, no one has mentioned how after weeks of class time wasted preparing for these tests both in the classroom and at home, teachers are then out of class for several days to grade the tests. We all know that little learning goes on when the classroom has a substitute teacher. This is a bogus reason to have them. The DOE should absolutely go back to the days where grading happens on weekends and teachers can volunteer for the extra pay. Taking them out of class adds insult to injury for our children!
Finally, it is unfortunate that tests that were designed to assess schools’ success at bringing students to grade level in basic subjects have been turned into admissions instruments for middle school — a purpose for which they were never intended. It is for this reason that test prep is so overdone not only in schools struggling to pull their students up to grade level but also in schools where achievement is already high.
Comment by a parent — May 15, 2009 @ 8:21 am