This week my students finished up their New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) standardized tests. The last of the tests is Science, which many of them dread. So far this year, they have sat through Reading, Writing, Mathematics, and now Science. They are completely burnt out. They are completely anxious and nervous that if they do not pass that they will face missing out on graduation. With many Rhode Island districts moving towards utilizing this test as a graduation requirement, many students and teachers are now being unfairly evaluated. The testing craze puts our students at a disadvantage and they become the casualties of this war on education.
Before teaching in Rhode Island, I spent three years in Massachusetts preparing my tenth graders for their equivalent standardized test known as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). I don't believe in "teaching to the test" and even when the importance of these students attaining proficient was expressed to me, I still refused to teach that way. As a teacher, I do believe that I should be held accountable for my students' learning; however, I do believe that there are other ways of doing this without a test. Last year, I had the pleasure of all of my students attaining proficient on MCAS. Even with this fantastic news, I still don't think the test scores should be a reflection of my teaching. The only thing this shows, is that I was able to help students fine tune their testing skills and teach them how to beat the test much like we have to do as educators when taking licensure tests.
I think that a better way to hold me accountable would be for administrators to work with me more often. What does this look like? Well, for starters it means that they should come to my classes more than the twice a year formal evaluation time. It means sitting down with me and discussing my goals for my students and my plan to get them there. It means that my data should be more than a score on a test or assignment that they complete. This means evaluating me without judgment and seeing the bigger picture rather than worrying if my objective is written on the board. I believe that the best data that a teacher could provide to show student growth and learning is a narrative on where the students were in the beginning and where they are making progress.
With the new teacher evaluation tool in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, they claim to be collaborating with and supporting teachers. They have created Student Learning Objectives (SLO) in which teachers create a goal for their students (which I do agree with) and that they show evidence of learning which is limited to assessments. In the end, this tool seems to still be a method for attacking teachers rather than truly allowing them to grow as professionals and get better in the field. If your assessments are still showing that students haven't mastered your goal then you have failed. This is absurd. I have had students that have started the year with me with so many learning gaps that it boggles my mind how they fell through the cracks. Some of these students have ended the year with me still having trouble with getting proficient on some of my assessments and tests. Does this mean I failed them? No. What this means is that I have not been able to completely close a gap in the nine months I have had them as a student. In the end when I look back at my observations and narratives on these students, I have in fact seen progress. I have in fact seen their reading and writing levels improve by perhaps a grade level or two. It just isn't enough to make up for the fact that they have been on a grade 4 reading level for years. It is still a triumph. I am still an effective teacher when I can speak on this and prove this. I am still an effective teacher when a student that would have never taken risks academically is now motivated to learn and try his or her best. Is this being taken into account when holding me accountable? No. Only my test scores are.
Teaching is about the progress that students make for the short time that they sit in front of us. Each year, I end my year knowing that I have done my best in providing my students with greater learning opportunities. Several other teachers out there do the same, but they are unfairly evaluated on test scores and pacing guides. School administrators and teachers need to work as a team in order to better serve students. Administrators need to realize that there is more to teaching than numbers, and teachers need the opportunity to show the learning and growth in their classrooms through several different types of data.
In the future, I would like to see us measuring students' learning and abilities in other ways aside from a test. This is not an accurate way for a student to show what they know. They are capable of so much more and they have learned from all of their teachers more than a test can ever show.
I agree that the war on education's main weapon is Standardized Testing and our students-the one's we are supposed to be helping--are the one's who are becoming the casualties. I think evaluating teachers based up test scores is also ridiculous because it cannot measure growth. I can attest to the fact that many students--even in mainstream education--have HUGE gaps in their learning--so this is a big problem when we use the "test" to evaluate whether they are learning and how much. So great teachers are being judged on the lack of other teachers' progress.
ReplyDeleteI think administrators don't need to realize that teaching is more than numbers...I think they need to REMEMBER THAT. Most of administrators are veteran teachers who've now been separated by their staff because of the UNION? Seriously--aren't we all fighting the same fight? And perhaps having them in my classroom in a more casual manner more often--would eleviate the awkwardness and pressure that many teachers feel because they know they are being judged: that the future of their job is dependent on this ONE or TWO evaluations and test scores alone.
Unfortunately, politicians (the one's who know nothing about education but make all the laws surrounding it) want things to be black and white and done by the numbers so it's fair. To some extent I agree with that, but what's their definition of FAIR?