I still remember her.
She was a shy girl, very pretty, but concerned because she wore glasses and braces.
She was quite bright, but easily panicked, particularly when taking tests.
I talked with her counselor and her parents, and then talked with her.
When she took a test and she saw other students sailing through the material she got very anxious and could not get what she knew in her head out onto her paper or to a scantron. She would worry that she was going to run out of time, and that would add to her panic
I asked if she were willing to try something. When I explained, she agreed to try.
For the next test I gave in 7th Grade American Studies at Williamsburg Middle School in Arlington Virginia, I had her come in on her lunch hour and take it with no one in the room. I would give her all the time she needed. She aced it, as I knew she would. Further, without the pressure of a time deadline, she easily finished the test within what would have been the normal time allotted for it.
For the rest of the year she took her tests from me in that fashion, and did quite well.
But she did not qualify for special treatment on Virginia's Standards of Learning (SOLs). After all, she was not a special education student, she had neither a 504 Plan under the Rehabilitation Act nor an Individual Education Program under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. And since Middle School SOLs were not used to evaluate the students, only the school, not enough adults realized what was likely to happen.
She got a solid A from me. But she "failed" the SOL. She missed the cut score by 1 point.
So I ask this question: if the purpose of a test is to determine what the student knows and can does, and we are aware of the impact of the test setting upon the student, how can we subject the student to testing conditions that interfere with her ability to honestly demonstrate what she can do?
In fact, why are we insistent upon timing tests? IF we allot 30 minutes to a section and 20% of the students run of out time, does that necessarily mean they do not know the material? What if they are more reflective in considering their answers? What if they read more slowly?
If instead we allot 45 minutes and 80% of the students finish in 25 minutes or less, and are sitting their bored, will that possible affect how they perform on subsequent sections?
If our intent is to evaluate what the individual student knows and can do, why is not each student allowed the time s/he needs to complete the assessment? Are we testing knowledge and skill, or merely testing how fast someone reads? If the latter, someone like me who reads at more than 1,000 words per minute has an unfair advantage, and the test is likely to be no more accurate for me than it is for a student who consistently runs out of time but actually knows the material.
I think back to that sweet young lady, now through college and in medical school. Fortunately Arlington Public Schools was a system willing to make the adjustments to meet her needs, especially after her experience in my class, and having her parents and her teachers advocate on her behalf. That is part of the reason she was not crippled academically by test pressure. As she matured, she became less anxious about taking tests, and by the time she went off to her elite liberal arts college she was able to take tests in the same room, but still needed the flexibility of knowing she could have extended time, although she rarely used it. Her family arranged for her to have extended time for SATs, on which she did well enough to get into her first choice college.
But what would have happened to her had we not been able to demonstrate the difference in her performance under testing conditions that were not so threatening to her?
Which was the more accurate measure of her performance that year in 7th grade, how she did in my class when I accommodated her needs, or her performance on the SOL where ostensibly she "failed" even though her score had no official impact upon her academic performance?
Can we think of what we may be doing to our children by our insane obsession with testing that is so standardized that we seem unwilling to accommodate the individual needs of our individual students? After all, is not our purpose in testing to let the students, the families and the school know what the child really knows and can do?