I
went to a low-income high school. It was also in a bad neighborhood, filled
with mostly Hispanic people and African Americans. As a freshman, I really had
no idea what the No Child Left Behind Act was and I wasn’t too concerned about
test scores for a school as a whole. My sophomore year, though, my high school
went through a restructuring process. They took away our half hour lunch break
called Flex block (we were on block scheduling) and forced us into a classroom
for half an hour directly after first block for a “study hall”. Everyone hated
it. Other than that, I honestly have no idea what else my school did to
restructure. I was always in the honors and AP classes, so I never had to deal
with the test-prep classes some people were put into.
But why do test scores matter? What
is the point of ISATs, or any other state exam? My high school didn’t meet the
AYP standards too many times and they have been restructuring ever since my
sophomore year. To the point where next year (when my brother is a freshman)
they won’t even have block scheduling anymore; so they can fit more classes
into one day instead of just four. Why are schools so concerned about the
scores students get on those tests? Is it because if they don’t meet the
standards, the school gets less money? Is that what education has come down to?
Education should be about the
students. Not the scores they get on stupid state exams. What if you’re a bad
test taker like me? What if you just had a bad day and couldn’t remember
anything? What if your home life was terrible and you got a bad night’s sleep
the night before the test? So many things can go wrong for a student and they
might receive a bad test score, even though they might be an excellent student.
Shouldn’t educators take that into consideration? The example Beers gave about
Collin is perfect for this situation. Just because he didn’t do well on the
state exam and he doesn’t always do well on his papers doesn’t mean he’s a bad
student. In all actuality, he seemed like a very good student. He just cared about different things instead of
grades and test scores.
That’s what education and literacy
should be. Who cares if a student doesn’t do well on the reading portion of a
test? It happens sometimes. When Beers wrote about her experience with Derek,
she said that his reading score had improved immensely, yet he was still placed
in a test prep class. How did his score improve so much? Was he placed into a
test prep class the year before too? Educators should see this kind of
improvement and treat it with respect. The student is bound to be excited about
this improvement, just like Derek. So why take away that excitement? Instead of
Derek having been placed into a remedial reading class, he should have been
moved up one more level. Obviously, he probably would have had a little trouble
with it, but isn’t that the way kids learn? He should have been placed into
something slightly harder than what he needed, or what his test scores said he needed,
and just asked for help when he needed it. That’s what I hope my students do
when I’m a teacher.
Of course I would want my students
to achieve good grades. But why should I care what they get on a state exam?
Items on tests like those don’t even matter in the real world. It’s like when
Beers talks about how some people had to memorize poems because they “ought to
know [them]” (pg. 8). How many of those people actually remember those poems a
week after memorizing them? I think it’s safe to assume that about 90% of those
students wouldn’t.
It’s hard to believe that school
administrators are only concerned about state tests scores. They really don’t
even matter. I don’t understand the point of them. I don’t even understand the
point of regular classroom tests. It doesn’t show anything. It’s also hard to
believe that some schools, like my high school, actually make some students
drive thirty to forty minutes to school because you’re the only town in the
district that has a high income and helps make the test scores go up. (Yes, I
had to go to high school a half hour away from my house, even though there was
a school only ten minutes away, just because the students from my town helped
that high school raise the test scores. It’s ridiculous to think about.)
Yes, it's such a tricky situation, and you're right that it unfortunately comes down to money, which I understand too in a way because everything takes money. Even with the state and federal assessments and curricula, they may come from a good place - people wanting students to be "successful" - however, it's cheaper to mass produce one-size-fits all tests rather than use more authentic measures that would take many more people and money to assess. Another option would be to trust teachers (: but it seems as if those days are gone forever!
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