Is teaching to the test, learning?

From the Miami Examiner

by Jennie Smith

Last month, Florida's House of Representatives passed HB 7019, the House companion bill of SB 736, called the "Student Success Act." It was signed by Governor Rick Scott on March 24 at a charter school in Jacksonville.

What exactly will this bill mean to public education in the Sunshine State?

The bill ends teacher "tenure" in the state--although teachers in Florida do not actually have tenure, which implies a guaranteed job for the duration of one's career, but rather a professional service contract which requires due process before termination of an employee. Under the new legislation, all teachers will be on an annual contract, which can be renewed or non-renewed with or without cause, for perpetuity.

Another salient element of the bill: 50% of a teacher's evaluation will henceforth come from student performance on standardized tests, using a "value-added formula" which has not yet been determined or specified. Based on these evaluations, teachers will be rated into one of four categories: Highly Effective, Effective, Needs Improvement or Unsatisfactory. Teachers who fall into one of the top two categories will be eligible for raises, when and if the district has money to provide them, which seems highly unlikely to anyone paying attention to how the education budget has been slashed year after year and is prepared to take up to a 10% hit this year. Teachers who fall into the two bottom categories for two out of three years, or two consecutive years, will be subject to non-renewal, regardless of any mitigating circumstances.

The FCAT will be used to rate teachers of subject areas currently covered by the test (math, English and science). Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate teachers (and students) would be rated by their results from those tests. By the 2014-2015 school year, all districts in the state must have standardized tests for each subject area not covered by the FCAT--at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars which are not being provided for by the state.

Students, in turn, will be required to pass the end-of-course exams in order to receive credit for the course, regardless of their grade throughout the year.

Teachers are anxious that not only will their salary be determined in the future by their students' performance on tests they do not write or even see, but that their employment will be as well.

But how do parents and students feel about it? Do they think that an increase in high-stakes testing will lead to better instruction, better accountability and thus a better education?

I recently took a survey, and the answer was a resounding "NO."

I would like to quote their personal anecdotes for the remainder of this article to give readers an idea of how high-stakes testing is already affecting their classrooms and schools, and how the new legislation threatens to take it to the next level.

Teachers say...

Maryann I., a sixth-grade reading teacher in a small district, says:

I am a 6th grade reading teacher in a small district. This year we have spent one day a week on the state's FOCUS testing. The kids read the passage on the computer and answer five questions. (If they miss one question they score 80%; two wrong answers brings them down to a 60%) As we get closer to FCAT, we are spending more and more time on this program and "FCAT practice." With the passage of SB736, we will see even more teaching to the test. We are teaching a generation of kids to take tests, not how to think or use critical thinking skills. The test makers claim the questions are higher order questions; but the child does not have to generate the answer, just locate the right answer. Florida no longer values teachers; we are merely Correct Answer GPS devices!

Katrina H., an Advanced Placement Government and Economics teacher in Miami-Dade County, has to teach in one semester what some schools teach as a full-year course. Her take on being rated by her students' performance on the AP exam?

If they do measure AP scores, then they better give me a year to teach my subject....I literally had to teach the first three chapters in the first week of class. The pace is insane- way more intense than a real freshman level college course. My kids really were great and tried to keep up, but we literally were rushing through the material. It basically boils down to teaching 20 chapters in about 40 class periods.

Nancy K., a third-grade teacher, describes how FCAT (and its practice tests) dominate her school's curriculum:

We are not encouraged to have fun until after FCAT. We are given FCAT practice booklets in every subject to help ready students for the test. We have to analyze every benchmark our kids take and state how we will improve each student's performance on the next benchmark. (Especially those "triple dippers".) And, in elementary, you can be reassigned to a new grade level every year leaving you as helpless as a new teacher when it comes to a deep understanding of the standards, benchmarks, and concepts that the kids are expected to learn that year. The kids don't have fun - and I don't feel like I am making long-lasting memories that a child will want to come back and thank me for one day.

Shelley W., an elementary school music teacher, worries that putting standardized tests into fine arts classes will kill the creativity that makes those classes fun and exciting to students:

Right now, there isn't a test! They'll have to pay someone (probably someone who isn't in music) to create a test for my students. A large portion of my student base is Spanish and don't speak very good English either so that will hurt me once this goes through. I probably won't be able to focus on the fun stuff like dancing and instruments but be forced to work on terminology and music theory.

They will be taking all the creativity out of the arts in the next few years and it's very sad.

(Of course, given the severity of the upcoming budget cuts, this may not even be an issue...there may not be any more fine arts in elementary school, or perhaps even in secondary schools. Layoffs are likely to hit fine arts and other electives first and hardest.)

Helen S. describes how the bombardment of tests (including test prep-tests) result in test burnout for students and, therefore, low scores, how it also narrows the focus within classrooms and how ever-shifting expectations create confusion and panic:

There are many issues at stake when it comes to testing. First, the amount of testing is simply out of control. FCAT is just one of many. And now they have added the common course assessments. Our students spent over two weeks in January taking tests...in EVERY class. It was insane, and the test fatigue showed in low test scores on the final days. What use is that?

FCAT Reading measures about 12 standards, but the number of standards we are expected to teach numbers in the several dozen. Yes, good teaching can and does make a difference -- it doesn't all have to be test prep. However, we are doing students a disservice if we do not prepare them for the types of questions they are going to be asked. They need to have a lot of knowledge in order to answer the questions, but beyond that, they have to be able to APPLY that knowledge. Therefore, they can answer with a definition what a metaphor or irony is, but then they have to be able to recognize it in a passage. Tough stuff.

The writing test for 4th, 8th, and 10th is the worst. It hijacks the curriculum for several months. We have to prepare them for two different kinds of tests because we don't know which one the state will give. I won't even get into how they keep changing how the tests are scored or how they changed what the "passing" rate was 45 days before the test.... Constantly moving the finish line really causes a lot of stress.

Steven J., a fourth-grade teacher, says that the focus on standardized tests has narrowed the curriculum in his school:

For the entire first semester, my time and effort is focused on teaching my students how to write to the test. There is little creativity, but rather only a stale, scripted method of putting words down on paper. Once the test is over, the "writing block" is replaced with extra math practice. This time is spent on teaching students how to locate/determine "key words" in the math problems, eliminate choices, and choose the correct answer. Very little teaching of mathematics going on, but rather teaching to the test (again). We simply have no time for social studies (FL History) or Health lessons until after the Reading/Math FCAT tests. Then, we try to cram in all in. In fact, I am only able to teach 3 chapters from the SS curriculum, but we have mandated health lessons that MUST be taught before the end of the year. Add to that "science fair," health nurse lessons, anti-bullying lessons, etc. Our district has used Discovery testing this year (no more FAIR or DIBELS) and I have found it user-friendly and very informative. I already knew how each of my students would score, but it did provide good feedback for parents and a remediation path to follow for my students.

Shawnda E., a ninth-grade Intensive Reading teacher in Miami-Dade County, says that she is expected to teach kids to pass the FCAT, not to be better readers:

I am not allowed to have students enjoy reading or learn about novels that are fun to read. My job is get the students to do better on the reading portion of the FCAT. Many times my students will say to me that they would like to read more if it was interesting material. However, the FCAT is the most boring material known to man, and that is what I have to use in order to prep them for the FCAT. Is this going to make my students become more well rounded and better to compete with the Chinese? No, not at all. However, this is what the lawmakers have picked in thinking that our students will benefit from constant drill and practice procedures. My students would be more avid readers if they had a curriculum that included material that teenagers would connect to and find interesting. However, that is not the case, and will not be the case as long as the reading FCAT is used to measure their reading skills or lack of reading skills. As a result, we are producing a whole generation of students that hate to read!

James B., a K-6 art teacher in Miami, explains how the focus on FCAT has used up valuable school dollars and kept many students in his school from getting a well-rounded education:

As a special areas teachers I have seen children pulled out of my class on a regular basis for "Crunch time" activities and Interventions. I also serve as a Mathematics Coach several hours during the week (I am not certified to teach math, much less math intervention) where I pull children into groups as large as 15 students, out of their special areas: i.e. music, P.E., and Spanish, and do intensive math instruction in the benchmarks which the students prove deficient in. All of this is in preparation for the FCAT.

My school spends THOUSANDS of dollars in FCAT material such as FCAT style work books and materials set up in FCAT fashion. If you walk into any Miami-Dade class room you will find these material readily available. We are teaching these children to take a test. We give them 4 interim assessments a year and 4 ETO assessments a year along with several practice tests and other mandated tests like FAIR, just to make sure these children are on par for the FCAT.

Nancy R., a teacher in her fifth year after working for twenty years in the private sector, describes how demoralizing the experience in the classroom in the age of high-stakes testing has been:

I came into teaching after being in the private sector for 20 years. I was laid off from every single private sector job not because of my performance but because the CEOs cared more about profit. They walked away with millions in compensation while I walked away with two weeks pay and a "hope you find a job, thanks for working for us." I wanted to make a difference, work in a job with a soul. I knew it was going to be hard but since I am a creative person, I thought I could make a difference. I still smile when I think of walking into my classroom for the first time.

Five years later and I am completely disillusioned. I teach in a school in which if we did not have a magnet program, would be Title I. Most of my students are on free and reduced lunch. At least 11 of them are homeless or close to being homeless. Students do not come to school with supplies - I provide if I want them to do work. In fact, one parent told me that if I wanted her kid to have a pencil, I should give it to them. That's what they pay me for.

Students do not behave - calling home results in either being unable to get a parent, being told they'll "talk" to the student (with no change in behavior) or being told they would come down and show me how to do my job. Out of the 9 conferences I've had in the past month, 8 were no shows. With little parent support, student behavior does not change and thus one child can negatively impact an entire class. I have a great class management plan but that one child can totally derail the class. I'm not allowed to discipline in my classroom and am encouraged not to send them to the office. What happens to the remaining 21 kids in that classroom?

I've had 4 students this year miss 25 or more days of school.

I do not mind being held accountable. I think I should. These children are the most precious beings that America has to offer to the world. But we're not teaching them to think - we're teaching them to answer multiple choice tests and life is not multiple choice.

I worked in the private sector. I've worked in retail where young people cannot add or subtract without the use of a cash register - and even then have problems giving back chain. They couldn't follow a drawing of how a retail display should be created. They want to be told what to do because they do not know how to think. I've worked as a customer service representative and manager - workers couldn't read a simple map to determine the best route to move cargo from Miami to Japan. They seemed to think moving it to France and running it by rail was the best solution.

We are not teaching anyone to think. I'm so disillusioned with our politicians on both sides of the aisle and the back rooms that I could scream. I worry that all is lost. And I just want to hang my head and cry.

Chris S., a physical education teacher who works with severely emotionally/behaviorally disabled students, has seen those children deprived of a chance to maintain physical health and perhaps vent some pent-up energy through physical exercise because of high-stakes testing:

My enrollment is a THIRD of what it was five years ago, even for one of the courses that I teach that is required for graduation. This is the case with all other electives at our school. Students who fail to pass the FCAT, or do technically pass but fall below an arbitrary score, are forced to take double block remedial reading and math classes.

Laurie S., a kindergarten teacher, feels the effect of overtesting even at her students' level:

I am disillusioned at how everything has been pushed down to our level to get these little people to be ready for FCAT. We test the living daylights out of these little people. Whatever happened to developmentally appropriate practice? Hands on learning? Forget it. No time. Have to teach them how to fill in a bubble instead.

When do our legislators come into our classrooms and spend a day doing our job? Yeah right....

Barbara K., a middle school social studies teacher, complains that high-stakes testing is preventing her students from learning history:

In the past, I had to stop content instruction for three weeks to do a "genre study" for standardized tests. It was a giant waste of time, the students hated it, and they kept asking why do we have to do this in history? More recently when the district requires our Progress Monitoring Assessments and FAIR testing they always do it through social studies classrooms. When students are selected for needing extra help in a content with a high stakes test, they are pulled from my class for tutoring. High stakes testing has stopped my students from learning content to focus on test taking strategies.

Tandy B., who teaches kindergarten to children with challenging home lives, worries that despite her efforts and a huge amount of expense of her own money, test results will not reveal her hard work:

I have 17 5-year-olds in the class. Many of my students are not in the typical household with both parents... there are grandparents raising some, because parents are incarcerated or absent...I have students who are ESL learners, and many who are dealing with issues of poverty. Yet I am expected to take these children and before they leave me, have them reading and writing 8-10 sentences, and adding and subtracting. I have about 5 who are low and 4 of them are dealing with attentional issues that parents are addressing... another has some medical issues and attendance is shaky due to these issues...Are these children's issues within the realm of my control? No...I cannot change a child's attention, and trust me, I have tried to make this as fun-filled and imaginative as I can. My children's test scores on average have risen 35%, but I also have spent over $1800 of my own funds for educational games, programs, supplies and extrinisic motivators... I have a raffle once a month for those who read BOB books to me, I play "Around the World" with site words and reward the winners there as well... so they are very well motivated, it is just the attentional issues are not quite there yet. I will continue to teach like my hair is on fire and hope and pray that the test results reveal this ...

Bob S., a science teacher, complains that testing and test-prep are pulling kids out of class:

My juniors and seniors told me they've been pulled out of class 3-4 times (yes, core classes) for some sort of testing this year. Over the last few days, its been for PRACTICE testing.

Susan G., an elementary school teacher, worries about how she will be evaluated and what the impact will be on her students:

I teach 2nd grade and wonder what they'll decide to use to evaluate me! I feel as though I need to start teaching my second graders how to take a test since they will be exposed to the high stakes test in 3rd grade. It's sad that the young teachers (I'm near retirement) who work so hard with challenging students won't want to do it if they are on annual contract continually and are evaluated by one test score of their students. No one will want to teach in economically disadvantaged areas!

Susan V. teaches above-average students who are still terrified of the FCAT because of its high-stakes nature:

I teach at a school in which the students (on average) consistently score highly. Yet- I am constantly suprised at the number of my students who come to me expressing their fear that they will FAIL the FCAT- even though I am expecting them to set the bar! I spend a lot of time instilling confidence, and trying to erase their fear. It's just sad...

Speaking for a moment as a teacher who has taught both Intensive Reading (for students who have failed the FCAT) and who now teaches French (an elective that tends to attract higher-achieving students but, foreign languages still being graduation requirements, does still pull in some lower-achieving students, especially in first year), I can attest to the impact of high-stakes testing in my own classroom.

I've seen students who read on or above grade level, and made A's in their honors or pre-AP English classes, stuck in Intensive Reading classes that were boring and insulting to their intelligence just because, for one reason or another, they had messed up their FCAT the year before (or, in a couple of cases, had moved from out of state and, since they had no FCAT score, were assumed to be deficient and were placed in Intensive Reading classes by default).

In the same class, I had students who read on a first-grade level, were totally unmotivated and often had behavioral issues. Their behavior made it difficult to keep the class on track, and even more difficult to provide "differentiated instruction," the mantra of "data-driven instruction." Differentiated instruction requires teachers to spend time working one-on-one or in small groups with students who need extra attention, explanation, encouragement or extensions. It sounds wonderful on paper, but in large, heterogeneous classes full of discipline problems and severely lacking in motivation, especially for a first- or second-year-teacher still feeling her way around classroom management, it really just means that the rest of the kids get to run wild or tune out for a few minutes.

In my French classes, I've had students pulled out every single class for weeks at a time for FCAT test prep. Those students were already struggling in my class and ended up failing for the year. I do not know whether or not they passed their FCAT but I do know that they lost a credit needed for graduation and also brought down their GPA.

Last week, my juniors were pulled out for an "FCAT pep rally" meant to psyche them up to take the FCAT Science next week. I have no idea how much good a pep rally could possibly do for their scores on that test, but I do know that it will set them behind in my class.

I am also expected to start each class with a math "problem of the block" for these several weeks leading up to the FCAT. I am not a math teacher and have not even taken a math class since my first semester of college, and am therefore quite rusty in algebra and geometry and do not feel competent helping the kids solve those problems--especially given that there have often been mistakes in the answers given to us or in the explanations of those answers. When I have attempted to do the "problem of the block" with my classes, it has usually led to extended debate about the answers or the work needed to find the answers, and we have lost up to twenty minutes of class time with this.

Finally, looking forward to the future, where I will presumably have an end-of-course exam in French that my students must perform well on in order for me not to lose my job (forget the merit pay, since there isn't any), I see a complete disruption in the way that I teach my classes. Given the lack of funding for test creation and scoring, I do not foresee a panel of judges who will interview my students in French or evaluate their writing in French, thereby testing their listening, speaking or writing skills. I foresee a multiple-choice test, that may or may not correspond to the district-adopted textbooks we use, that will only test their knowledge of vocabulary and grammar and perhaps their reading skills in French--thus leaving out three of the four essential components of language. Currently, I try to speak to my classes exclusively in French and encourage them to use only French in the classroom, though that is very difficult to do, especially at the lower levels. We do vocabulary and grammar exercises both orally and in writing; they have to write essays in class, for homework and on tests, which can be as short as four sentences at the beginning of French I or as long as two pages in French III and AP; they do conversational exercises in pairs and small groups; we work on pronunciation; we read texts, from short ones in the textbook to plays and poems; we work on listening comprehension through audio and video, assessed by classwork exercises, discussions and tests; they do projects at various points in the year that include creating a television commercial in French and corresponding through letters and e-mails with pen-pals in a French high school. I truly believe that all of these activities are essential to developing all of their skills in the target language--listening, speaking, reading and writing--as well as providing them with a sense of purpose and usefulness that is absolutely crucial to keeping them motivated. Yet none of this would be reflected on the coming end-of-course exams. What would be reflected would be extremely specific vocabulary and grammar items that, depending on whether they were in our book and where they were in our book, the students may or may not have been exposed to and may or may not remember the day of the test. It is not at all uncommon for me to find on chapter tests students who completely botch all the verb conjugations, yet score very highly on the listening portion and manage to put together a very comprehensible paragraph in French for the essay portion. I would argue that the listening and writing portions mean much more than the verb conjugations, which is really nothing more than rote memorization, especially since many of the conjugations in French are pronounced the same and differ only in spelling.

Advertisement
But the Florida legislature--the vast majority of whom I am sure know next to nothing about French, much less about teaching French--apparently disagree with me.

Parents say...

Kay D., a parent of a special-needs child, says:

I am disgusted by the proposal of SB 736. My son has excellent teachers, who we tirelessly support with reteaching and extra practice at home in addition to assigned homework. Because of his disabilities, he continues to struggle with reading performance.

It is highly likely that my son with struggle with his performance of FCAT (he is currently in first grade), through no fault of his teacher, or fault of his parent involvement with the support of his education. It would be a consequence and struggle with his documented disability.

To tie his “success” in school, to ONE test, ONCE a year…..and to tie his teacher’s salary to his learning difficulties is absurd. It takes in no account of his tremendous growth and progress compared to his performance and growth from the previous school year, and it takes in no account of HIS effort, the efforts of his family, and the effort of HIS TEACHER during this school year. We are all left defeated by ONE TEST!

Legeslation should be supporting proven educational theories. Teaching to the test is not “best practices” and high stakes testing is bad for children and schools. Too many variables are at risk here, specifically: unreliable test questions, a one day "snap shot" of the student which may not be his/her best day or consistent performance otherwise, test anxiety (of which many students are being documented to supper from in record numbers) and students with disabilities are definately not able to perform their best on these sort of "best answer" questions. I am sick of the direction education is headed.

To fix education we need to get back to instituting best practices and follow basic theories of education and human development. Teachers and students should be “judged” on a yearly portfolio of the student’s best work, classroom participation, grades and performance on project/speeches/classroom debates, on teacher grades on class work and chapter tests, individual assessments by the teacher, AND standardized test performance to document growth of skills in that student and to access data in order to create a plan of success for the student (not to document teacher proficiency and student “failure”). Using these methods creates an “overall picture of the student” focusing a myriad of abilities to be documented and performed by the student. It will give children like mine a chance at success, rather than a number placed next to their name, the name of their teacher, and the name of their school.

Jeff S. speaks to the stress the testing caused to him and his child:

I will never forget my kindergartener coming home crying her eyes out because she was so scared about passing the 3rd grade FCAT! This is a child who is in the gifted program and a fantastic student! I also remember the 2 hours of homework she had every night in 3rd grade. It was two hours with me, a high school physics teacher helping her. I constantly wondered what the kids with less available parents, who weren't as capable of helping, did.

Tandy B. decries how the focus on testing has taken away from a well-rounded education and what it means to be a child:

I am so sick of these high stake tests and the rhetoric that it brings down on my children. Let me state that my children both do well in school, but it is because of the amount of time we spend after school studying with them and tutoring...the children get no outside time and family time is a scarcity. There are evenings I can't plan a grocery trip because the homework is so extensive. We had to pull my one son out of Boy Scouts because his grades began to slip. We also had them in breakdance only because it was a Friday night class and wouldn't interfere with school work. The term "teaching to the test" is what we are now doing, and will probably be doing more of now that teachers will be paid based on their students' test scores here in Florida... this whole idea of high stakes tests does not allow for children to have play time, free time or recreational time... it both saddens me and sickens me.

Jennifer M. explains how high-stakes testing focus hurt her children's education and left them unprepared for college:

The FCAT is a low-level grade-level test that does nothing but lower standards, especially for kids who operate above grade level. When my son was shopping for a university, admissions personnel told us they hated the FCAT because it caused high schools to not prepare kids for college since the test was so low-level. I could write pages and pages on how my children were hurt academically by excess testing and excess low level FCAT prep. In Broward County my two gifted kids took multiple mini-bats, multiple bats, and the FCAT -- assessments for the assessments for the assessment! They did nothing in school but grade-level prep that covered only an extremely narrow curriculum. My younger child literally slept through all of 8th grade, learned nothing, and did well on the FCAT. He told me we had to do something because he couldn't take being that bored anymore. So I moved him to private school. When my son started in the private school, he and his public school friends who transferred were way behind the private school kids because the public school kids only had learned the narrowly based FCAT material, while the private school kids had been exposed to a high level broad-based curriculum. My son was two years advanced in math, but he struggled in Algebra II in 9th grade because his 7th grade algebra course included very little algebra, since most of the class consisted of grade level math, not algebra. The public school kids he knew scored below 10 on a 100 point grammar test, while the private school kids he knew all scored between 80 and 100. Why? Public school kids don't learn grammar in Broward County because knowledge of grammar isn't needed to pass the FCAT, so it isn't taught anymore. My son had to re-learn how to write because FCAT-type writing earns a failing grade in both private schools and at the universities. I could go on and on. The difference between private and public has nothing to do with inherent differences in public versus private. My son is now getting the same high level curriculum I got in public school. The only reason public school can't offer it is because of FCAT, A++ Accountability, Differential Accountability, Race to the Top, etc.

My older son is now in college, but he had to re-learn how to write. His college biology course was taught assuming he had learned certain things in high school he had never been exposed to. When he was in 10th grade, his gifted honors English teacher, the teacher of record, had to sit in the back of the room while another teacher, who had only taught level 1 students, taught the class for the FCAT Writes test for most of the year until the test. She had no idea how to relate to gifted students who resented the low-level template she taught. My son got Ds because he wrote how he thought he should write, not to the template. He was one of the few students who got a 6.0 on the test, yet he almost failed English in doing it. When the regular teacher took over and the kids finally started with the real curriculum, his grade shot up to an A and he was the only A in the class. The teacher said she had never seen a child change so dramatically. He finally was given the high level material he needed and so he performed well. But of course his semester grade was a C because the A was combined with the previous D. Colleges only saw the C on his transcript and never knew his ability in English. (He is now an English major. He stumbled into it, luckily, because he never would have just picked English as a major since he resented his high school experience so much. It turns out he is very talented in that area.) In his honors World History course, only FCAT reading prep was taught. That same curriculum was given to the AP World History students and no one in the class passed the AP History exam. None of the science classes were taught correctly; they all became Integrated Science with Biology and Physics specifically not taught. The new physics teacher was fired when he actually taught physics instead of repeating over and over a 15 minute script he was supposed to read on Integrated Science. The replacement teacher taught an FCAT science prep curriculum.

On the day of the writing test, the proctor left the word wall uncovered. On another FCAT day most of the tests in the room had been opened, but the proctor was told to ignore that. I called the State of Florida about the problem, but nothing happened. I was told that many tests statewide were damaged and so it would be expected to find many opened tests. Why, then, was that never reported in the news? I checked with several reporters who flat didn't believe me, yet I had verified my facts.

Back to my younger son. In 7th grade he was supposed to take a new state-mandated career exploration course. The teacher was excited and told the kids she had spent her summer preparing a curriculum for this course. But within the first week of school the principal made her stop and told her to teach FCAT reading instead. My son was tested twice and we found out that both times he scored at a college reading level. Yet he was forced to spend a year in 7th grade FCAT reading prep. In his gifted English class in 8th grade he only worked on FCAT writing, as did my older son in 10th grade. The class read one book, and it was the same book he read in his gifted 4th grade class several years earlier. Each year in math the teachers quit teaching in January and took all the kids who had math in the same grade and same period and at all levels and put them in the cafeteria to do FCAT prep on the overhead. This continued until March when the FCAT was given. Due to all the Bats, mini-Bats, and the loss of class time between Jan. and March, the kids working above grade level never finished a math course. This, of course, caused serious problems the following year as I have already mentioned. The SAC team of my local high school was told all of the 9th grade kids taking Algebra II were unprepared due to poor preparation in Algebra I at the middle school.

Yet given that the Florida legislature (and governor, who has yet to make an appearance in a public school, despite multiple appearances in charter schools) are on a crusade to privatize public education in Florida, perhaps this is exactly what they want--to force those parents who can to take their children out of public schools, and give the means to those who can't afford it, but have high-achieving students, to do so, thus effectively turning public schools into nothing more than a warehouse for children society has left behind...conveniently blaming the teachers for the lack of results.

Students say...

Abel I., one of the top students of his class at the school I teach at, says of the effect testing (whether FCAT or AP) on teaching:

I was mostly an AP kid during high school, so it feels like every class was for a test. Maths and science? Test. History, psych, and English? Test. Whether FCAT or AP, my teachers seemed to be constrained and limited to what they could teach me. Instead of critical thinking, I was taught to memorize material I've now forgotten anyway. I didn't actually gain anything from it. I wasn't taught in school about why some things in history happened, or why something is done in maths, but simply that things are the way they are.

And that's not how you teach. I've been in college less than a year but long enough to realize that teaching should mean inspiring kids to want to learn and to be interested in subject matter not because they have to but because they choose to. In that environment, learning becomes something you actually want to do and pursue.

Sarah C., now a college student, describes how her teachers' teaching style changed once standardized tests became high-stakes:

As a student in Virginia, most of my public school career was without high-stakes standardized testing. The only standardized test that ever passed our desks was the Stanford 9, and it was used only as a tool to measure where your learning level was in comparison to other students in your grade level. Only in my latter half of high school did I have to experience [high-stakes standardized tests]. And hoo boy, lemme tell you, it was like two different worlds.

The teaching styles changed dramatically. Gone were videos and documentaries that we viewed in class about historical subjects, gone were the in-class activities that turned bland material on a page into something more, and a lot of the outreach and help disappeared, too. SOL (Standards of Learning, the Virginia equivalent of the FCAT) objectives were written on the board each morning like tally marks on the walls by prisoners.

Students and teachers both liked to call them the "S--- Outta Luck" tests. Teachers' enthusiasm for their subjects visibly waned as they strained to teach material at a rapid rate. For the most part, students ceased to pay attention or care any more. Some accepted dropping out as their fate. And I can tell you this: I wouldn't have failed the second half of geometry in eleventh grade if those horrid guidelines weren't in place. The class moved WAY TOO FAST, especially for someone who isn't very math-savvy such as myself. Even the more math-oriented kids were complaining about the pace of the class.

My government teacher in senior year forwent the SOL objectives the year I took her, saying candidly that it was a bunch of crap. She taught things her way, and as a result we had a blast in her class and we learned a lot. The year after I graduated, she retired, presumably because she was sick and tired of the way the state of education was going.

But I've looked at Florida compared to my home state, and it looks a lot, lot worse. My nephew is in kindergarten in a Florida public school, and they make that boy do SO MUCH WORK. They even have homework. In kindergarten. Kindergarten is supposed to be a transitory period for children, not testing them! The amount of recess compared to what we had as children in the '90s is pathetic. I had a chance to observe a first-grade class for a week a couple of semesters ago for my Intro to Education class (guess who changed her major though, thanks Rick Scott), and the children were absolutely restless.

Know the old saying "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy?" It seriously proves true.

Linda S. also reflects on the changes in teaching as testing went from being a simple diagnostic tool to an end-all-be-all:

I graduated from high school in 2003 and had the "honor" of being a part of the first graduating class that was required to pass FCAT. It was interesting because as a 4th grader I was given a pilot test that we knew nothing about and we all did awful. By 8th grade it became the important replacement of CTBS and by 10th grade it had become life or death. From 8th-10th grade, writing a 5 paragraph essay became the most important thing that I needed to learn. Teachers were complaining about the transition from assigning research papers to 5 paragraph essays. My junior and senior year, my AP Englsih teachers were clearly torn between teaching the FCAT as required by the school with prepping us for college. When I entered college, professors complained about this new crop of students that no longer knew how to write. My sister is 6 years younger then me and had FCAT take over her entire education career. Even recess was taken in elementary school to give her more time to prep for the FCAT. I can only imagine what her college professors are saying and I'm thankful I was able to receive SOME valuable education before FCAT took completely over.

In conclusion...?

I will not claim to be unbiased. As a public school teacher dealing with the FCAT both directly and indirectly, and seeing its impact on students, curriculum and my school as a whole, I cannot remain "objective"...nor can my colleagues, my students or their parents. The anecdotes above are just a few (very few) examples of reactions to the overemphasis on testing among teachers, students and their parents. I have had too many of these conversations to count over the past five years with other teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, children and parents, and I really cannot remember hearing anyone applaud the high-stakes testing as beneficial to children. (The only ones I hear doing that are politicians, many of whom have cronies--or even family members--making big money off testing and the charter schools introduced as an answer to the "crisis" in public education--diagnosed by standardized tests.)

The refrains I hear come up again and again from teachers, students and parents:

* The curriculum has been narrowed to subjects covered by standardized tests and "dumbed down" to teach children how to answer questions the way the test expects them to.

* The high-stakes nature of the tests has caused such intense nervousness and panic in children that some even throw up on test day...and this is true not only of struggling students likely to fail the tests, but even of high-achieving students, simply because so much rides on the tests and because they have been emphasized so much throughout the year.

* Whether directly by administrators or indirectly by the need to cover all the material and test-prep required by the tests, teachers are discouraged from teaching classes the way they think is best for their children; from adding hands-on, critical thinking or creative components to their lessons; or digging deeper into material for thoughtful discussions (if that material is not likely to appear on the test).

* Children are increasingly deprived of electives that contribute to a well-rounded education (such as arts, music, foreign languages, etc.) or to physical well-being (physical education, and recess on the elementary level) or to the possibility of a well-paid career after high school for those students not academically inclined (vocational courses) in favor of increased test prep classes. When they do have those electives, they are often pulled out of them for more test prep.

* Even classes that virtually everyone agrees to be essential to education--social studies and science, for example--are neglected, especially at the elementary levels, in favor of increased focus on tested material.

Overemphasis on testing has also caused countless cheating scandals and cases of schools and districts "gaming the system," as Diane Ravitch warned in her excellent and well-researched book on education reform, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Recently, nationally known education "reformer" Michelle Rhee, a self-described Democrat but a favorite of Republican "reformers" looking to push a privatization agenda and currently the transition education advisor to ultraconservative Gov. Rick Scott, has come into the spotlight for a likely and widespread cheating scandal occurring during her tenure as the Washington, D.C. Chancellor of Schools. She is famous for firing hundreds of teachers in D.C. and linking employment and pay to test scores there. Now, it has come out that since 2008, more than half of D.C. public schools have been flagged for having higher-than-average numbers of erasures from wrong to right answers on tests; in one class, the odds of winning the Powerball grand prize were higher than those erasures having happened normally.

This is unfortunate but not surprising. Whether Ms. Rhee herself encouraged teachers to change answers or otherwise assist students during testing is not even really the issue...we can be sure she did not. However, creating a system where a single test score determines whether one has a job the next year, and how much one will be paid, will inevitably push cheating to occur, both on the part of teachers and administrators, whose performance is also measured by the test scores.

Enough is enough. Isn't it time to put tests back to where they belong, and get back to teaching?

http://www.examiner.com/dade-county-education-policy-in-miami/is-testing-teaching-or-learning-teachers-parents-and-students-say-no