Education Week - September 17, 2014 - 28

COMMENTARY
By Sherah Betts Carr & Anaya Bryson
S
ince the signing of the No Child
Left Behind Act in 2002, the culture
around pre-K-12 education
has moved from one in which
testing policies and procedures
had been a nagging frustration
for educators to one in which
teachers and students are under
Debunking Three Assessment Myths
"
constant scrutiny. As a result, it has become
commonplace for teachers to decry the ills of
aggressive testing. Nationwide, students, educators,
and administrators are confronted with
an alphabet soup of national testing demands.
Just consider this partial list: ITBS, NAEP, CogAT,
SAT, ACT, and the common-core assessments-
PARCC and SBAC. These tests are typically
mandated without consideration of state and
district assessments, schoolwide common assessments,
and the formative and summative
assessments that teachers regularly administer
in class.
Educators are not happy that assessment
demands are intruding on day-to-day teaching
and learning, but there are a few practical and
constructive strategies that can help them (and
their students) cope with this new reality.
Based on our more than 35 cumulative years
of classroom experience, we believe it is possible
to manage this assessment juggernaut.
(Sherah is a classroom teacher turned professor
of education; Anaya is a classroom teacher
who is regularly in the throes of assessment
demands.)
Following are three of the biggest testing
myths, and what we believe teachers can do
about them.
Myth No. 1: "They've got to learn it all;
it's on the test!"
Reality: Both novice and veteran teachers
alike are understandably overwhelmed by
the huge task of helping students master the
content necessary to succeed on standardized
tests. In many cases, the format and content
of the tests merely gauge students' ability to
recall facts, proofs, or theorems through abstractly
constructed questions set in unrealistic
situations.
With so much at stake, including salaries,
professional-advancement opportunities, and
even jobs themselves, it is understandable that
teachers struggle to find efficient methods to
economize student learning. All too often, it
seems that what matters to administrators,
parents, and legislators is those test scores.
Thus, for teachers, it is a great risk to spend
time helping students grasp deeper concepts
or develop higher-order reasoning skills when
there is no guarantee that this effort will
pay off when it comes to the test.
Teachers can resolve this tension by sticking
firmly to good pedagogy and effective practice.
Showing kids how to connect the dots in
smaller ways through concept mapping, an
organization strategy that allows students to
visualize how ideas are related to one another,
can help. Another option would be to pair interdisciplinary
content areas so that students understand
how ideas work in the real world. For
example, students are more likely to recall a
grammar lesson on adjectives from an English/
language arts class if the science teacher later
encourages them to use adjectives to describe
common features of organisms.
Myth No. 2: "You are what they score."
Reality: When media outlets publish and
scrutinize district test results, schools are often
labeled with a ranking. This contributes to an
atmosphere in which a teacher's value is equal
to the test results of the school. So teachers at
low-performing schools are branded as problem
educators. The importance of student demographics
and the extent (or lack) of family
and community support, however, are rarely
considered.
If you think about the perceptual misunderstanding
that surrounds test-score
results and couple that with the pressure
of internal teacher-evaluation systems, it
is not hard to imagine how teachers might
hang their worth on their students' testing
data. Teachers can easily be drawn into a
culture of self-blame.
Instead, we suggest that teachers react to
the data differently. They should let go of the
test score and focus on student growth instead.
In other words, they should ask themselves
how their classroom instruction contributed to
the students' success (or lack thereof).
With this question comes the need to evaluate
their practice honestly.
Teachers should document
what they feel
they've done well,
identify what areas in
their practice need improvement,
and explore
the steps required
for growth.
Steve Braden for Education Week
The
accountability
waters are as
choppy as
ever, but
teachers
needn't drown
in them."
With the explosion of electronic resources,
teachers can easily connect to a vast array of
support teams and online communities if they
can't find those resources close at hand. Teachers
want to help (and enjoy helping) each other.
There is no excuse for drowning when there are
so many new and relevant professional reinforcements.
Myth
No. 3: "I am powerless over the test."
Reality: In addition to the enormous task
of helping each child do well on assessments,
the list of tasks that teachers face only grows
longer. The job title of "teacher" insufficiently
describes the universe of responsibilities foisted
upon them beyond the walls of their classrooms.
They must also be part-time bookkeepers, technology
experts, data analysts, registrars, librarians,
nurses, counselors, judges, defendants,
PAGE 24 >
SHERAH BETTS CARR is an associate professor of education
in the Tift College of Education at Mercer University in
Atlanta. ANAYA BRYSON is a 5th grade enrichment teacher
at a public elementary school in Gwinnett County, Ga., and a
doctoral student at Mercer University.
| INSIDE |
22 EDUFLACK: IT'S TIME TO REFRAME
THE K-12 POLICY DEBATE
23 'DO NO HARM':
A HIPPOCRATIC OATH
FOR SCHOOLS
24 LETTERS TO
THE EDITOR
22 MAKING COLLEGE ACCESS A
REALITY ONE CITY AT A TIME
28 | EDUCATION WEEK | September 17, 2014 | www.edweek.org/go/commentary
http://www.edweek.org/go/commentary
Education Week - September 17, 2014

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