Commentary As fall signals its arrival with cool nights and leaves changing, another school year is in progress. Last month, I enjoyed perusing the pictures of my friends’ children on social media, smiling into the cameras on the first day back to school. It called to mind my own children’s first days back, as well as mine during the more than 30 years I worked as a teacher, substitute and volunteer in Baltimore County Public Schools. Each year, another new beginning inspires us.
People ask me what has changed the most in education. I surprise them when my answer is not technology. For me, it’s testing. No one can argue that technology has certainly had an impact, having its own merits and downsides, but testing has fostered the inappropriate use of technology in education. Testing has morphed into a monster that influences everything in public education from our youngest students being deprived of recess and movement to our high school students suffering from anxiety and depression. The use of testing has eroded teacher autonomy in a way we could not have foreseen when I began teaching. These are only a few of the unfortunate effects of over testing.
Current testing practice is a travesty; not just here in Maryland but nationally. It has driven many parents into the arms of the homeschooling movement and to charter schools, undermining our heritage of free and public education delivered by qualified, trained and certificated teachers. The Maryland State Department of Education takes its lead from the United States Department of Education, often accepting funding in return for agreeing to mandate tests that drive curriculum and instruction in a manner that leaves little room for a teacher’s professional judgment as to what is best for her students. This contributes to low teacher morale. What teacher feels good about not being trusted or respected?
Long ago in my first years of teaching, we administered one test per year in elementary schools – the California Test of Achievement. It took less than one week. There was no talk of test prep. It was a time when teachers relied on their own expertise. In BCPS, curriculum was written by teachers and so valued it was sold to districts across the nation. While it was always expected that curriculum and outcomes would be the teacher’s guide, there was a degree of latitude that allowed teachers to make evaluations and determine how best to meet students’ needs.
Fast forward: Currently in BCPS, as in most of the state, students will spend many days not just taking the tests, but preparing for them. As Jonathan Roland, a BCPS high school teacher so eloquently stated in his opinion piece on February 4 in The Sun, (“Maryland Should Join Other States in Shunning PARCC Testing”) “We could have replaced most of those 123 days set aside for potential assessment testing — out of 180 school days total — with a simple, well-established assessment like the California Achievement Test, which takes about 2.5 hours to complete and is given in grades three through eight and once in high school.”
Mr. Roland recently shared with me that this year’s calendar shows 19 days for the PARCC tests, nine days for the High School Assessment, and six days for the Maryland Integrated Science Assessment. These testing dates do not include the Measure of Academic Progress tests, which are given to students in kindergarten through grade 12 several times a year.
The pervasive nature of testing has chipped away at teachers’ knowledge and expertise by robbing time from instruction and allocating it to testing and test preparation. Our children are the victims. This has gone on far too long.
While PARCC is soon to be replaced, this is no cause for celebration. Too many days will continue to be used for testing – and this does not even take into account the many days used to “prepare” students for the tests. Perhaps soon we will have a calendar with “instruction” dates that pepper the school calendar while the rest of the year is devoted to testing.
It does not have to be this way. We need action from our legislators. Everyone must demand that the madness stop. Enough. Find tests that are appropriate. It can be done. Let the teacher teach and the children learn.
Anne Spigelmire Groth
Retired teacher, BCPS, National Board Certification
Excellent commentary! Such testing has not accomplished what it was set out to do, according to claims. And continual online testing of students — and the financial burden of requiring computers to do so in all schools — is more of an outside business model and industry than a true means to educating our students. Allow professional teachers to do what they do best: Teach.
BRAVO, you have given us all a great analysis of one aspect of the public education disaster. I respect your professional opinion and can only add my full support as a successful single father of four.