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Putting testing to the test

Posted on May 1, 2008 by Staff

By Steve Peha & Margot Carmichael Lester

As we head to the end of the school year, we find ourselves in testing season. We also find ourselves unsettled as a nation with regard to the value and appropriateness of this now-annual ritual. Government officials at the state and federal levels contend that widespread testing is the only way to insure successful reform. But the general public, when it looks at test results, isn’t so sure. In the middle, of course, are administrators, teachers and kids, three groups whose opinions don’t seem to matter as much as perhaps they should.

While there’s no shortage of talk about testing, the dialog never seems to get anywhere. Framed as an all-or-nothing issue, the discussion tilts toward opposite extremes and opposing extremists. Rarely do the realities of academic life come up for discussion. How does testing affect administrators, teachers and kids? These are the questions we need to start answering if we want to put testing to the test. In our consulting work over the last decade, we’ve seen testing’s effects firsthand. Far from the black-and-white issue debated in the media, testing seems to us to be something complex and nuanced with positive and negative effects at every turn.

For administrators, testing has provided an unprecedented view of school-wide academic achievement. Principals now have reams of testing data to review, and many spend hours looking at scores to find meaningful patterns of success and failure. But what do they get for this effort? Given the nature of the tests, and the way scores are reported, the data often leaves them with more questions than answers. For example, low reading scores would lead anyone to conclude that their school needs to get better at reading. The real question is how to accomplish this.

For teachers, testing has most significantly affected the way they spend their time and the way they assert their independence. Taking tests and preparing for tests dominate the year in many classrooms. As teaching to the tests has increased, many instructors feel they can’t teach to their students. Teachers have also lost a degree of independence as departments and grade-level teams plan their years toward an ideal of having everyone teach the same way on the same day. On the positive of side of the equation, this leads to more consistency. On the negative side, the consistency achieved isn’t always healthy.

Kids are, of course, the most dramatically affected group, but also the hardest to understand. In general, their test scores are going up (though much more slowly now than at the beginning). But do these increases mean our kids are doing better at learning? Or are they just doing better at tests? And what effect, if any, has testing had on student attitudes toward learning? We haven’t even begun to ask these questions, let alone answer them. And yet, they are perhaps the most important questions of all.

One thing is certain: The academic achievement of every child now matters, as does the leadership ability of every administrator and the instructional skill of every teacher. For all its drawbacks and controversies, testing has brought a level of seriousness to school that wasn’t there before. People in schools think differently now than they did just 10 or 15 years ago. And even if our schools have not become better as a result, educators have become clearer about the reasons why.

What we need now is not more testing or less, but the beginnings of solid research into how testing affects schools. The notion of “research-based practice” has become a government mantra. But little research has been done on testing itself. Does testing make schools better, and if so, how? What kinds of testing systems provide the greatest benefit with the least harm? How does testing affect teaching? Are we better off with low standards and higher scores or high standards and lower scores? What happens when we tie passage of tests to high school graduation? Only by answering questions like these will we come to understand whether testing is helping our schools or not.

It’s time to put testing to the test. States and the federal government should begin now to set aside small amounts of money to study the effects of the testing systems they’ve created. Major academic centers like UNC’s School of Education should undertake research into how testing is helping our kids and our schools. Independent organizations should conduct their own research as well.

People on all sides of the issue want to know the truth about testing. We shouldn’t be kept waiting indefinitely for the results of reform.

Steve Peha and Margot Carmichael Lester own Teaching That Makes Sense, Inc., an education reform, advocacy and consulting company based in Carrboro.

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