School Board Speaks Out on High Stakes Testing

An overreliance on standardized, high stakes testing can strangle our schools. Change the system to include more balanced assessment. That’s the message our School Board sent the General Assembly of Virginia via a resolution it passed unanimously earlier this week.

The resolution makes several key points:

·         there is little research verifying Virginia’s use of criterion-referenced test results as measures of the growth of student achievement or staff performance;

·         we value deep, meaningful learning, as opposed to the superficial level of learning that results from an over-emphasis on that which can be easily tested by standardized tests;

·         focusing only on test prep steals the joy of learning and teaching from students and educators; and

·         accountability is important, but an accountability system based primarily on high stakes, standardized testing will not prepare our students for the future.

While calling on the Virginia General Assembly to improve the accountability system, the School Board recognizes that we are not powerless. The Board emphasized that even in an era of high stakes testing, we need to stick with the instructional approaches that we know effectively promote student engagement and achievement. The Board called on staff members

to help students master the content and skills of the curriculum by continuing to promote the joy of teaching and learning with a focus on deep, meaningful, transformative learning, rather than an over-emphasis on just covering content that can be easily assessed by standardized tests.

It is hard work to focus on deep, meaningful learning that helps students master the content and skills of the curriculum, including that which is assessed by state exams. But at least it is a little easier when you work in a division with a School Board, other teachers, principals and a superintendent who do not expect you to focus exclusively on boring memorization of facts to enhance test performance.

Kudos to our School Board for sticking up for deep, meaningful learning.

Related Links:

Washington Post article featuring the resolution passed by our division and others
Daily Press editorial calling for reform of Virginia's approach to standardized testing
3 Steps to Decreasing Teacher Dropouts

The Joy of Teaching and Learning

The resolution adopted by the School Board was adapted from a template provided by the Virginia Association of School Superintendents and echoes similar statements from other School Boards and professional associations in the United States.

Choice is a waypoint on one route to engagement

Could a classroom be transformed into a place where "on task" and "off task no longer had any meaning, where all student activity that led to learning was honored and promoted?

@GeraldAungst poses this disruptive question in his recent post entitled On-Task is not a waypoint on the route to engagement. He describes a four-quadrant grid with On-Task as the horizontal axis and Engaged as the vertical axis.

He correctly observes that "While we'd like to have all students in the upper-left quadrant (on task and engaged), we seem to think that the lower-left quadrant is the next-best place to be." And he asks, "What if instead of forcing kids to the left, we looked for ways to raise them up into the quadrant of off task but engaged? What kinds of teacher action would encourage a student to engage on his terms without necessarily participating in our activity?"

The distinction that @GeraldAungst articulates between on-task and engaged relates to Phil Schlechty's distinction between ritualistic engagement and authentic engagement. With ritualistic engagement, students go through the motions of a task, complying with the instructions of teachers, but not fully committing themselves to a task because they do not intrinsically value it.

I commented on Gerald Aungst's blog about practical considerations relating to his proposal for a classroom where ALL student activity that leads to learning is honored and promoted. Gerald appropriately responded, "If practical things are getting in the way of learning, maybe we have to change what we consider practical . . .Change the system, and what is practical may change."

Honoring ALL student activity that leads to learning is an incredibly high standard. Accepting Aungst's challenge to "change the system" with this high standard in mind leads to many disruptive questions. How should the student day be organized? What type of classes, if any, would be held? To what extent, if at all, should we rely on direct instruction? How should we assess and recognize student progress in learning? Is there still a role for course credits/Carnegie units?

And this brings me to the key role of student choice. Even within the confines of the current system (standardized tests, bell schedules, Carnegie units, etc), educators can increase the likelihood of student engagement by providing more student choice. This leads to greater variety of student activity within a classroom, even if it does not achieve the proposal of honoring and promoting ALL student activity that leads to learning.

Imagine a continuum that runs from teacher control to honoring ALL student activity that leads to learning. Providing students more choices moves us along the continuum.

We can provide students different types of choices. Broad or narrow. Relating to means or outcomes. In any case, as we provide students more choices, we will open our minds to the possibilities and avenues towards honoring ALL student activity that leads to learning.

To use the language of @GeraldAungst, choice is a waypoint on one of the routes to student engagement. 

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