High Stakes Assessment

High Stakes Testing

Since the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, high stakes testing has been at the forefront of American public education.  The accolades for schools that perform well are many and the punishments for schools are even more numerous.   I'm in a pretty lucky situation at the school at which I work---our school has scored well on end-of-the-year standardized tests from it's inception.  The year the school opened was the last year for the STAR test, and California has now transitioned to the Smarter Balanced Assessment. Our school, The Heights Charter, outperforms the local elementary and middle schools and currently is ranked an 8 out of 10 when compared to schools of comparable size and populations in the state. There isn't a lot of pressure put on staff or students regarding state testing. The culture at our school is pretty much the opposite of the soul crushing, suicide inducing levels of South Korea.  But here's the question: are we low-key because the students consistently score well or do the kids consistently score well because we're low-key? I'd say it's a bit of both.

The Heights Charter

The Heights Charter is a small TK-8 school in Alpine, CA (a suburb of San Diego). Our population is fairly affluent and predominately English speaking.  Our Special Ed team is known in our community to be outstanding, so we do carry more IEP students by percentage than a school our size.  We currently serve approximately 220 students.

High stakes testing is arranged to minimize stress to our students and keep routines as normal as possible.  Because of this our end-of-the-year testing window is three and a half weeks long.  The maximum time per day our students test is graduated by grade level: 3rd graders, 1 hour per day; 4th graders, 1 1/2 hours per day; and 5th grade-8th grade, 2 hours per day.  Younger students are given spots earlier in the day; however, all testing is finished before the lunch block.  Make-up are done at the end of the third week of testing and the beginning of the fourth week. In talking to other teachers in the county, this is a highly unusual approach.

As a staff, we do not teach to the test.  We teach to the State Standards which are covered in the test.  We do have the kids practice writing answers in the forms that they will see on the test.  We also review the format of the test the week before the testing window opens. We do not receive bonuses for high scores, and test scores are not used as part of our annual evaluations.

Students are not required to earn a "proficient" score on the Smarter Balanced Assessment to move to the next grade level.  Our administrator feels that the test is just a snapshot in time and does not directly reflect the work students complete during the school year. We do use the testing to monitor progress and group students at the start of the following school year. Students don't seem to mind our testing window and only a handful have severe test anxiety. We're fortunate to have a school psychologist on site, and she works with these students to give them strategies to reduce their stress levels.  She's an amazing resource to have at school everyday.

Literacy First Charter

Literacy First is a relatively large 4-8 charter school in El Cajon, CA ( suburb of San Diego). The population is not very affluent and comprised of a large percentage of ELLs.  Spanish is the most commonly spoken first language; however, the school also has a large number of Iraqi immigrants, so they have a lot of students with Farsi as their first language. Their Smarter Balanced Assessment scores are higher than neighborhood schools nearby. The school serves approximately 600 students.

Their high stakes testing window is two weeks.  The first week most of the testing is completed, and the second week is used for make-ups. They do not use the results to decide whether students should be moved to the next grade. However, the teacher did mention that she's seeing an up-tick in test anxiety in her students, and several parents opt their students out of the testing.

The teacher I interviewed felt like the staff at her school does not teach to the test.  Like our school, they teach the standards and emphasize the format of the test so the students are aware.  They do not have to take any practice tests to chart their progress before the real test in May. They do not receive bonuses for high scores, and test results are not included in their performance reviews.

Conclusions

Both schools do not seem to stress the end-of-the-year testing too much with staff and the students.  This is more than likely because both our charters are performing better than neighborhood schools in the areas in which our schools are located.  Success allows for some breathing room.  There is at least one school in the Alpine area who are on the verge of needing to go to remediation because of a lack of measurable progress on the Smarter Balance Assessment.  We had five students transfer from that school to ours because the pressure put on testing was getting too overwhelming for the students.  I can't wait to see how these children are going to perform in our more relaxed atmosphere.

 

References

Jeunes, L. V. (n.d.). Student Suicides in South Korea. Retrieved January 11, 2018, from                           http://www.voicesofyouth.org/fr/posts/student-suicides-in-south-korea

Kamenetz, A. (2015, January 22). The Past, Present And Future Of High-Stakes Testing. Retrieved      January 11, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/01/22/377438689/the-past-present-      and-future-of-high-stakes-testing

Smarter Balanced Essentials for Educators. (n.d.). Retrieved January 11, 2018, from                                 http://www.smarterbalanced.org/educators/essentials/