Every state in the nation has its own set of regulations regarding Value Added Measures (VAM) for determining a school's and teacher's evaluation. Furthermore, every state has its own set of parameters for determining Student Achievement Meaures (SAMs) in the classroom as well. I can only speak for the state where I teach, and where I am a parent of 3 children.
When I talk about the over testing of students, many of my friends and acquaintances think I am only speaking about the PARCC. The PARCC is only one test in a long list of many. I can't help but think about the time when I was in high school and how much things have changed since then.
Educational reform is something that really holds a great deal of political pull in our nation. Any time any candidate says that s/he will stand behind the success of children, our families, and our future, we tend to believe that there will be successful changes--a kind of golden ticket that will place us at the forefront of international economic competition. The reality is, however, that many of the educational reform measures have led to an environment of sheer testing, an environment that does nothing more than generate profit to text book corporations and test generating entities.
When I was in school, there was a series of tests we took in elementary school: The ERBs. The ERBs were taken once a year, in grades 1-5 (Kindergarten children were exempt, as they were just starting to learn the game of being in school). The ERBs were intimidating, but were also state generated tests that were carefully aligned to state curriculum and standards. These tests were used to determine whether students needed further intervention, state-funded tutoring programs, or even grade level retention. These tests were completed in one afternoon, usually in a couple of hours. It was a scary process, but when it was done, we all sighed out of relief--much like how I still feel about getting my taxes done once a year. :)
In middle school, there was another series of standardized tests, and unfortunately, I can't remember the name of it. But it was taken for one day, once a year, in grades 6-8. In high school, we had the same state tests, the NMHSCE, along with the ACT and SAT tests. So all in a school year, three days were taken up with standardized tests; final exams were considered part of the classroom requirements and not standard.
Now, we live in an era where all of education is measured by standardized tests. In my state alone, I started looking at the Public Education Department's requirements for both SAMs and VAMs (many of which are the same tests). In this school year alone, the following tests were required for students (and I looked at grade levels, as well as the required tests).
Student Achievement Measures (SAMs) used to determine Value Added Measures (VAM) for teacher evaluation:
DIBELS: grades K - 12
Q1 Growth: grades K-12
MAPs: grades K-12
CLV (grade data still being researched at this time)
STAR (grade data still being researched at this time)
ACCESS: grades K-12
TABE: grades K-12
PLATO: grades K-12
GLV: grades K-12
Riverside: grades 9-12
SGGELL: grades 9-12 (for English Language Learners)
SGGEconD: graes 9-12
SBA: grades 4, 7, 11
HSGA: all students who did not pass the spring SBA last year
EoC: Any student in 1-semester courses, grades 6-12; and optional retakes for high school
ACCESS for English Language Learners: Grades K-12; only for current ELLs
NCSC: grades 3-High School
NAEP: grades 4, 8, and 12
TIMSS: grades 4, 8, and 12
EOY (End Of Year): All grades, K-12; like EoC, but for all year-long courses (including elementary and middle school education).
NMAPA: grades 3-High School
PARCC: grades 3-High School
When I stated in previous comments and diaries that we had 71 days scheduled for testing this school year alone, many questioned whether that would even be possible. Furthermore, it has been determined that many of these tests are repetitive (they assess students on the same material), and that more than half of them do not align with the state standards, benchmarks, and required curriculum map. If these tests do not align with our state educational requirements, how are they an accurate measure of student achievement? Overall, students have lost 300 hours of instructional time, which does not seem like a quality use of educational time.
Many politicians are now saying that in order to accommodate the testing environment, students need to spend more time at school--prolonging both the length of time at school from 6.5 hours to 8.5 hours, as well as the days spent in school from 180 (teachers have 184 days) to 200 days. Many corporate lobbyists involved in education say that such a schedule would better prepare students for working; however, psychological and neurological child development research determines that spending more time in school will not help students better retain information or even increase the test scores (for more information as to why, read my diary on special education, standardized tests, and why I am not a Special Education Teacher).
We do not necessarily need to rethink the school schedule (although with district budget cuts, our school board has revamped our schedule for next year, increasing the number of classes each teacher instructs so that teacher positions could be cut--leading to more students in the classroom and less time for teachers to prepare and assess student work); we do not necessarily have to increase the amount of time a student spends in school. As much as we would like to be able to be a stronger competitor with Japan in the realm of education, I also do not think that we should also compete for a higher student suicide rate (the highest statistics come from Japan because of the pressure to succeed in the educational system).
What we should rethink are the instances of testing, and how to best determine how to use testing to determine student success. Testing statistics should not be used as a measure of teacher evaluations; rather, administrative observational evaluations, documentation of professional development, and observational evaluations carried but by members of the school board would be much more appropriate measures for teacher evaluation.
Many individuals within the community voice their disdain for teachers' frustration with VAM statistics for their evaluation, saying that every professional is evaluated on his or performance. Somehow, they believe that teachers are wanting out of performance evaluation measures altogether. This is certainly not the case; when there are teachers who are not effective in their work, it creates challenges for both the students and other highly qualified professionals. What we are not okay with is the consistent exploitation of students in the realm of testing, which has led to an environment of limited instruction in the replacement of standardized tests.
Reform to education has been necessary to an extent in that is has been necessary to incorporate further technological advances, abilities for students to have more individualized instruction, and to feel encouraged to independently explore certain topics and issues. In this sense, reform to education has been necessary, but not to the kind of extreme that has taken place. Again, I can only speak for my state, and my state has taken the idea of standardized tests to an extreme that is not reflected by many other states in our nation.
Along with standardized tests, we have changed school schedules, teacher requirements, evaluation measures, and student course graduation requirements. It is as though we see something that needs attention, but we're not entirely sure how to fix it. But in changing everything at once, we have no opportunity to evaluate what has really been successful and what hasn't.
I strongly encourage you to really find out from your school districts and state departments of education what is indeed required for your students and the educational environment, and evaluate how those requirements truly benefit our students, and the subsequent strength of our nation's economic and political standing.