State Testing: The Ultimate Solution

July 10, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 5 Comments

Oklahoma is rewriting standards for the 143rd time in the past decade – each time ‘raising the bar’ even higher than the time before, we are assured. National struggles continue over Common Core in all its manifestations and retitled remnants. Should we move to the ACT to save money? Is it better to grade writing exams with crappy software or crappy temps rounded up on Craigslist? Should we punish 3rd graders for not developing at a pace of our liking? Stop high schoolers from graduating for their test scores? Devalue teachers who take on tough classes and work in the most challenging districts? The rhetoric alone gives me a headache.

We’re can’t even agree on WHAT we should be measuring – which subjects, which skills, and at what level. Should we one day solve that (we won’t), we’ll still have to reach some sort of consensus HOW we can evaluate whatever it is with any sort of accuracy or consistency (we can’t) – and all at lowest-bidder prices.

Fear not, my Eleven Faithful Followers – for I am about to reveal to you the final truth regarding this matter. I am confident my solution is both eloquent and attainable, for that is how I roll. You might want to sit down for this.

To hell with the tests.

Seriously, $&%# ‘em. I refuse to care about them one way or the other anymore. I’m tired of watching good teachers with missionary zeal end up stressed out and derailed due to the pressure of some stupid state test and its randomly shuffled cut scores. I hereby revolt against the entire process.

Parents are already opting out in some places, and a few brave teachers in Tulsa Public have refused to administer anything they believe is bad for their kids. I applaud each and every one of them.

But what I’m instituting is more basic. Starting today, we universally refuse to worry about tests or testing. When they happen, they happen. Our kids will do well, or they won’t. Our schools will shine, or they won’t.

We must no longer give even tiny little damns.

You didn’t go to teacher school to improve test scores – none of us did. You, like the vast majority of your peers, signed up to save the world – or part of it, anyway. You became a teacher because you love kids, and history, or music, or art, or math, or literature, or some other life-altering something. You signed up because you care.

Silly idealist.

You may teach a high stakes, heavily tested subject, or something marginalized as ‘extra-curricular’. Maybe you coach, or sponsor, or organize, or publish. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you just show up and teach your tired old butt off every day and that will just have to be enough.

But you signed up to make a difference. You signed up to teach kids.

So let’s teach. Let’s love our kids where they are and who they are, without concern for where they stand in relation to someone else’s legislative pablum. We’ll challenge them, and push them, and demand great things of them no matter WHAT their circumstances or gifts – but I’m no longer willing to frame anything important in terms of state standards or national goals. I’ll work for my clueless lil’ darlings, and I’ll do it because I like it. I don’t care about the rest.

So to hell with the tests.

Most of the time, if we just teach the way we know we should, the kids will do fine on the tests anyway. But even if they won’t, as soon as we begin to focus on things BECAUSE they’ll be on the test, or rush through content BECAUSE the test is coming, our priorities drift away from our calling. Testing puts us in an adversarial role towards our weaker students, and rewards ZIP codes over zeal.

Testing is anti-learning, and anti-education. It doesn’t even $#%&ing work the way they keep pretending it does.

I can’t prevent lawmakers from labeling my kids as losers, or failures, or stupid, but I don’t have to be the instrument of such blasphemy. Bill Gates may excoriate my darlings for their lack of college and career readiness while Sir Michael Barber shakes his mass-mandated little fingers at them for their reading scores or their lack of interest in Algebra II – but I don’t have to help.

I don’t have to abuse my kids to please lawmakers or publishing companies. I refuse.

My students are awesome. Some of them are lazy, but that’s fixable. Others lack certain skills or critical content knowledge, but I’ll ride their behinds until they progress. They’re amazing, even while they make me crazy. They’re perfect, even when I have to kill them dead in front of God and everyone in order to get their attention. Give me those tired, poor, muddled classes, yearning for a ‘B’.

I love them.

What will happen to my kids if they don’t pass their state tests? They might have to take them again, which kinda sucks. If not, there are a dozen alternate ways to graduate. Generally, as long as the children are suffering, hate anything involving learning or school, and replace natural belief in their own possibilities with a deep loathing towards their truest selves, the state is satisfied.

I don’t want students to go out of their way to fail the damn things, but neither will we divert meaningful time or energy into passing them – the trade-off is simply too great.

If this is a calling, then let’s do it as a calling. That’s why we put up with the crappy conditions in some places and the degrading pay in most. It’s why we’re so tired, and why it’s sometimes hard not to become jaded, or bitter, or simply give up and go through the motions.

If this is a calling, then let’s do it as a calling. Make a difference, help kids, pour yourself out in a desperate effort to light a few more fires. Look your broken ones in the eyes and tell them that the world is a liar, and that they’re amazing, and beautiful, and powerful, and smart. If you can’t – if you’re afraid because someone’s pressuring you over test scores, and that’s the priority – then why are you even here?

Seriously – go get a real job. There are better gigs. Some even pay.

Let them fire you. Fire ALL of us. Well, the good ones, at least – the ones unwilling to play that game, even a little. The ones who’ve decided to follow their calling until they’re shown the door.

Let those principals and superintendents reach out to that long line of people desperate to teach public school in Oklahoma, or Texas, or wherever you are. Around here, that line consists of something like… zero people.

OK, that’s not entirely true – there’s that pompous unshaven guy with all the degrees who spills his coffee everywhere, and that weird chick with no concept of personal space or social cues. I guess they could hire both of them. But after that, their options are pretty much exhausted.

The rest of us aren’t going to worry about the tests, no matter how many times they’re revised or how high a ‘bar’ some legislator thinks they’ve set. Our bar is higher anyway – and so much better.

If they don’t like what we’re doing, they can find someone who will cooperate. We’ll sell shoes or fix computers or work in our brother-in-law’s insurance office. More money, less stress.

To hell with your tests. I don’t care about them, and I won’t play along any more. I’ll no longer compromise my calling or my kids to cater to the rhetoric of liars and fools.

And neither should you.

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The Awareness Test

March 1, 2015June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

In the wide realm of things everyone else seems to have heard of except me, a colleague shared this video at a recent PLC:

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There are several variations, although once you know kinda what to look for, you think you’re getting better at it:

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Of course, just when you think you’re looking for the ‘right’ things…

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Sometimes the idea is done for class projects, other times to promote a show (above). It’s also popular with PSA about things like paying attention to bicyclists when you’re driving, or in this case:

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It’s funny, though, how often I missed stuff even when I thought I had a pretty good idea what sorts of things I should be looking for:

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The human brain is amazing at filtering out extraneous information when it really wants to and when it’s had some practice.

I know – you’re picturing your teenager, seemingly unable to set her phone down at dinner or your spouse who keeps checking his texts every time the dryer beeps. So, it’s more evident in some cases than others.

Much of it seems to be ‘preset’ by evolution (or, if you prefer, by the way the good Lord made us), and it’s NOT a bad thing. Can you imagine trying to get through even a relatively calm day if you were equally absorbed by everything around you – every image, sound, movement, option? We’d never be able to accomplish… anything!

This seems to be part of what’s happening with those we label ‘ADHD’. We’re living in rather stimulating times, and yet we insist they stay fascinated by US in a square room surrounded by diverse peers for hours at a time. They lack the ability, whether chemically or developmentally.

But that’s not why I bring up these Awareness Tests.

I’m more worried about the kids who ARE able to screen out extraneous information. We’ve done a great job teaching them to keep track at all costs of how many passes the team in white makes, or how many times the bird drops the stick. They’ve mastered the ability to zero in on the specific elements which result in ‘success’ according to our measurements – 94%, ‘B’, etc.

And yet we wring our hands and wonder why they don’t fall in love with the great short story, the fascinating complexities of history, the wonders of chemistry, or the moonwalking bear. We’re bewildered that they can’t seem to appreciate the stuff we find so very important, even though we’re the ones making sure they’re punished for not keeping track of those damn sticks.

What’s the matter – afraid of a ‘high standards’ and a little accountability?

We’re doing it wrong. I’m not sure I know the ‘right’ ways to do it differently, but I am confident this is not it.

My daughter is not the perfect student. She’s scathingly unforgiving of the slightest perceived flaws in her teachers (no idea where she gets this – must be from her mom’s side of the family). She has trouble getting up for school in the morning, and she spends too much time thinking she’s working while what she’s really doing is Twitter with her calculus book nearby.

Her state test scores were off the charts, and she was a National Merit Semi-finalist derailed only by her GPA – those magic marks we use to reduce each child’s value and learning experience to one of five letters and a number between 1-100 which no one can actually explain or justify.

Her situation is unique only in that she is either unwilling or unable to play the game as well as many of her peers. They learn to count the passes of the white team, the black team, and eventually they can be trained to spot when the curtain changes color. In the process they learn to ‘filter out’ anything not being measured, rewarded, or punished.

They hate it, but they’ve been brought up to believe this is what you do – digging holes in one part of the field and filling them in another, then reversing the process the next day because that’s what their captors tell them to do if they want to earn good marks.

She used to ask me the best questions about chemistry and mathematics – stuff I had no idea how to begin answering – and like an idiot I suggested she ask her teachers. But they’re in the same game, and discouraged such distractions. I’m not sure they always even knew what she was asking, or how to respond.

She doesn’t ask anymore. She’s learning.

I’m not talking about the kids completely alienated and marginalized by our system, the ones who fail and get in trouble and lower our teacher evals. I’m not talking about ‘bad’ schools – the ones supposedly hiding all of those ‘lazy’ teachers afraid of accountability. I’m talking about ‘successful’ students in top districts – the ones who we need leading tomorrow and being the future and lighting starfish in buckets or whatever.

We’ve taught them to ignore the moonwalking bears at all costs. We’ve taught them to grab the ‘right’ answer and present it carefully formatted in the ‘correct’ way no matter what they have to kill in themselves or filter out in their surroundings in order to do so. And every time we change the directions (‘OK, look for the bear this time’), they’ll do the new thing just as single-mindedly.

It’s not the fault of a few ‘bad apples’ in the classroom. We’re all part of a system requiring such travesties for our kids to graduate. Individual educators can fight it, but if you fight it too well, your students will end up outside the game and never make it into a decent college or whatever – so… that’s a problem.

We’ve broken them in the name of education, and I’m pretty sure we’re all going to teacher hell as a result. I’m increasingly unsure whether I can do it anymore. Maybe I can’t stop the abuse done in the name of ‘standards’, but that doesn’t mean I have to help sew the straitjackets. We’ve GOT to find a better way.

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10 Lessons Learned from Common Core Testing

November 23, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

The Journal, an online periodical dedicated to “transforming education through technology” recently posted a fascinating list: “10 Lessons Learned from the Assessment Field Tests – Schools and districts that took part in the PARCC and Smarter Balanced trial runs share their experiences to help you prepare for online testing this spring.”

If you’re one of my Eleven Faithful Followers, you know I’m not particularly anti-Common Core. Oklahoma’s not even a Common Core state this month. Still, I work enough in surrounding states which ARE that I thought it would be worth perusing.

And… oh my god. The list… it’s… well, irony is dead to say the least.

All ten are the same lesson, repeated without irony or complaint – “Spend More Time and Resources Hyper-Focused on Computer-Based Testing.”

Lesson #1: Prioritize Your Infrastructure
Many school tech directors “talk about the devices first.” That’s the wrong approach… “You have to talk about the infrastructure first. Get that working, get that up to speed, spend the money where you need to there, and then talk about the devices.”

Too many schools are wasting their resources on instructional items or those overpaid tenured classroom teachers. Let’s prioritize, shall we?

Nothing on this list makes even a token effort to suggest “kids knowing stuff” should even be a factor, let alone a priority. Any resources devoted to learning are specifically redirected to things like…

Lesson #2: Do A Dry Run

Setting aside the unpleasant implications of having dry runs, you should monopolize the manpower and classroom space required for testing well in advance of the ‘real thing’. This carries the additional benefit of eliminating early any lingering sense we should care about anything else. Ever.

…If you’re taking a room that’s normally used for other purposes and dedicating it to testing, you may find that once you’ve packed it with “30 computers and 30 people, the air conditioning isn’t adequate to keep it cool. It’s not the thing you’d think of right off the bat.” Another possible scenario: You find out too late there isn’t enough power to run all the systems…
You might have enough Internet bandwidth coming into the school, but it may be that the access point that serves a particular sector of the school was expecting a dozen devices, and all of a sudden you have 30 or 40, and it’s not built for that much capacity.” There’s no substitute… “for setting up all your computers and getting the equivalent number of people in front of those computers, whether it’s students volunteering to stay after school to play around or a bunch of parents and teachers bringing up a practice test and trying it out and making sure everything works.”

Finally, something to do with all of those teachers and kids always wanting to hang around for hours after school – they can take practice tests online! That way, if there are problems, the school can promptly renovate their technological infrastructure solely to facilitate more testing. Bonus!

Lesson #3: Prepare Staff for New Priorities

So… what were the old priorities?

The Student Information Office dedicated two months to getting everything ready for the test, including working… to develop a schedule of testing sessions that they kicked back and forth for days on Google Docs…
“I didn’t have much to do at all with standardized testing before… Now we were totally dedicating our time to working on it.” Once the schedule was in place, the IT department dedicated about a month and a half to preparing the devices, “something that normally they wouldn’t have to do.”

It’s difficult to know where to begin mocking something so naturally horrifying and full of self-parody. Keep in mind no one included or quoted is complaining – they’re sharing their keys to success.

Lesson #4: Try a “SWAT” Approach

…There’s no such thing as over-planning when a school is undertaking a major initiative such as the transition to online testing… make sure you have a lot of people to help you out…

If there’s one thing schools have in abundance, it’s helpful people without anything to do. We hardly know what to do with them anymore! Thank goodness testing is here so they won’t be bored or anything.

Lesson #5: Adjust on the Fly

Good news! No matter how much you plan, tons of stuff will go horrible wrong. Be ready to be consumed with dealing.

Clearly the rules for PARCC and Smarter Balance testing are different than other standardized tests in which the slightest wrinkle requires full shut down and execution of all witnesses, including the young.

During the field testing, both the state department of education and Pearson held a daily briefing with district representatives to share problems and possible solutions…

I gotta give these people credit – they sound so enthused over the days spent troubleshooting a variety of devices. I’d be far less giddy over test-software-compatibility-alignment.

Lesson #6: Get All Hands on Deck

Although teachers acted as proctors during Burlington’s field testing, members of multiple departments were enlisted to provide in-school support… “We brought in as many team members as we possibly could.”

I don’t know about you, but I do get pretty fed up with people in the building wasting their time on stuff other than testing, test-prep, setting up for testing, or pretending to test so the testing tests go testier.

Lesson #7: Try Out Various Scheduling Scenarios

If you’re not sure which approach to scheduling will be best, consider testing different schemes at different schools…

The best part about massive online resource-heavy testing is that there’s no reason every school should do it in the same way or under similar conditions. Variety and personalization are what makes it standardized and therefore such an effective tool.

Lesson #8: Deal With Keyboards

Both PARCC and Smarter Balanced have mandated the use of external keyboards for their tests, but some districts have discovered that they should probably be optional.

Um… but they’re not. Does anyone involved in this process understand how “standardized” works? Your personal flavor choices aren’t a factor – THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT. It’s why real teachers hate these.

“The students in Burlington don’t use an external keyboard. They like the on-screen keyboard. The fact that PARCC required it was actually a bit of a challenge for the kids who weren’t used to having it.” During the field test, he said, “Many of our kids disconnected the external keyboard and stayed with the on-screen keyboard. We just wanted to make sure they were using it however it was most comfortable for them.”

So maybe it’s not “standardized” causing the confusion so much as “mandated.” Or could we have been using that #3 pencil all along without retribution?

“Our students didn’t like having to sit at stations taking long stupid tests, so they looked up the answers on Wikipedia and then played Candy Crush. We just wanted them to be comfortable.”

Still, given that the districts quoted so far all have 1-to-1 technology, I can see how it might be important that every student have their own personalized test-taking device with which they’re so comfortable – just like every other child who’s ever going to have their worth judged by these assessments. Oh, wait…

Good thing there’s no possible correlation between your technological comfort-level and your ability to demonstrate what you know or are able to do academically.

Lesson #9: Practice the Sample Tests

Students will need help finding their way around the online assessments. Sample tests provided by both PARCC and Smarter Balanced can give them the introduction they need… “The performance tasks were certainly a new element, and that was probably the biggest change we saw… Part of that was building understanding around which tools the student can use during the assessment, such as dragging and dropping and drawing lines.”
To help students get comfortable… “We wanted all of our sites to have the time to make multiple practice tests before the field tests… so we could do it well in advance of the real test.”

I don’t have to even say it, do I?

Lesson #10: Put Your Communications Experts to Work

Although Smarter Balanced and PARCC have robust informational websites, the amount of content they make available can be overwhelming…

Yeah, lots of content can be. So can the skills required to effectively take ongoing technology-based assessments.

Good thing we seem to have eliminated anything else which might clutter the minds or energies of our kids.

#OKSDE & The A-F School Report Card

September 21, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

The Oklahoma State Department of Education recently released its infamous “A-F Grade Report” for districts across the state. Why?
Let’s look at their own A-F Frequently Asked Questions page, shall we?

Note three things about this, keeping in mind the OKSDE chose the question, wrote the answer, and put it first on their own FAQ:

1. The A-F system is designed so parents and others can get a quick & easy idea how schools are doing. If you know anything about public education at all, you know that how we’re doing is anything but easy to measure. Half the time we can’t even agree about exactly what we should be doing. But the whole purpose of A-F, according to this, is to more conveniently label HOW SCHOOLS ARE DOING – minus context, nuance, causes, solutions, etc. This is repeated throughout the FAQ. Parents or community members could, of course, quickly and easily determine how local schools are doing by visiting and asking how it’s going, and what they could do to contribute – but that would be expecting someone outside the school itself to do something other than offer criticisms and blanket condemnations from afar.

2. The report card is a measurement “for challenging students and communities to strengthen the effectiveness and performance of public schools”. What does that mean, exactly? More importantly, now that we’ve done this a few times, what signs are there that each year with the A-F report cards come out, students rise up and communities mobilize to begin “strengthening” their schools? Does the SDE have even anecdotal evidence suggesting anything positive happens as a result of these press releases? If not, then by its own defintion the process is a failure and we can stop. If, on the other hand, students and communities are having montage moments over school effectiveness, then we should see very few schools on the ‘F’ list twice, yes?

3. The primary indication of success is standardized test scores. That’s a world of issues in and of itself.

Let’s look at another question from the FAQ:

Wow. Where to begin?

4. Of course there’s a loss of funding. The state keeps cutting education budgets across the board. The only distinction is that they cut funding for all schools, not merely those labeled ‘D’ or ‘F’. This is the opposite of what a teacher – even a mediocre teacher – does with a student who’s trying, but not finding success. Imagine me bragging to a parent or administrator that although a specific child is in grade trouble, I’m not reducing the time and energy I spend trying to help her! Well – I am, but I’m reducing the time and energy I spend helping every other kid also, so let’s just pin on that Excellence Through Equity medal now!

5. If kids don’t hit those nebulous testing targets, we send in the REAL experts – the folks at the SDE – to educate the teachers. Of course the SDE has held the key to student success all along, but they’ve been keeping it super top secret to give those poor struggling teachers a chance to try it THEIR stupid way. Do we have any stats on the impact of this visit from the SDE on student test scores the FOLLOWING year? I mean, if the problem is that the teachers need some “spurring,” and the SDE’s done come and “spurred” them, scores should soar, yes?

6. Can you tell the ‘spur’ thing bugs me? You spur a horse that’s not trying very hard or moving very fast. You spur a horse because horses are too stupid to know which way they’re supposed to go on their own. You dig your metal into its flank and keep your bit in its mouth so it will remain compliant – an extension of your own purposes. Spurring suggests schools and teachers get F’s because they’re just not trying very hard. They’re meandering, munching some grass, peeing a long time – just standing there until the SDE comes to do some spurrin’. Giddy-up go, Ms. Hernandez – giddy-up, go! Because you know what grade a horse really wants? A neighhhhh…

7. Choose any “low-performing school” near you. Give them a call and ask what the OKSDE has done to “support” them lately – or the state for that matter. Teachers are expected to address problem areas, find solutions, build success; all state leadership seems willing to do in practice is label and publish. Useless.

8. Grants to the good schools? I’d never heard of this one before. How adorable – it’s the White Man’s Burden, Education Edition. We’re going to further reward upper-middle-class-two-parent-family schools for explaining to the high-poverty-broken-world schools what they’re doing so badly! “Have you tried getting your kids to be less… poor? Are you familiar with the need for more ‘grit’?”

9. May I see the numbers on increased parent and community involvement based on low scores on this “report card”? Can I get in on this “conversation”? Dr. Barresi echoes this talking point in the Tulsa World when asked about the mass of research demonstrating the “grades” with which she bludgeons schools are not merely pointless, but demonstrably harmful and deceptive:

“The grade card may be cursed, it may be praised, but it sure is causing conversation in the state of Oklahoma,” Barresi said.

Adrian Peterson should try this approach: “Well, my disciplinary techniques may be cursed, or they may be praised, but they’re sure… (*patronizing chuckle*) causing conversation.”]

After this FAQ, the next item provided to explain the whole A-F system is this letter from the OKSDE’s own “Executive Director of Accountability.” He proceeds to contradict pretty much everything explained in the FAQ.

I’ll excerpt the essentials:

…we must ensure that the A-F system is both understandable and interpreted appropriately. Therefore, it is important to have a clear idea of what it is — and isn’t — intended to measure.
The A-F Report Card is:
* An indicator of the percentage of students, regardless of background, within a school who are currently meeting or exceeding grade-level academic standards.
* An indicator of the percentage of students (particularly the lower performing students) who are at least making significant progress toward meeting grade-level academic standards.
* An indicator of whether schools are exceeding expectations in terms of school attendance, high school graduation, etc…
The A-F Report Card is not:
* A measure of the “school” or “teacher” effect on student learning.
* A statement about a school’s overall quality of services provided.

10. I love his concern that we make A B C D & F somehow “understandable” and “interpreted appropriately.” The reason you choose to format something in terms of commonly recognized symbols and terms is because everyone recognizes those symbols and terms. Divide your class into reading groups christened Eagles, Sharks, Otters, and Turtles, and no one has to guess which group is the slow one. If the OKSDE were worried people might think that A B C D & F means what it obviously and always means, perhaps they could have chosen other terms.

11. Suddenly now this whole A-F thing is about measuring students – are students meeting expectations? Are students making progress? According to the rest of the OKSDE, the only part students have in this whole thing is when they rise up with the community to strengthen… something or other. But according to Dr. Tamborski and his fancy title, it’s all about the students. The only thing schools are directly responsible for is making sure every kid on their roster gets up and to school every day. I assume this involves setting their alarms, maybe pouring them a bowl of Fruit Loops, that kind of thing – stuff it makes complete sense to hold schools exclusively accountable for. Not this other stuff.

12. Lest we continue in our ridiculous delusions, we are explicitly corrected – WITH QUOTIE ACCENTS – not to view these A-F Report Cards as a measure of the “school” or “teacher”. Seriously – why is “school” in “quotation marks”? I’m not “sure” for what “purpose” they’re being “used” here. In any case, I’m confused. If these report cards don’t allow “parents and community members” to “quickly and easily determine how local schools are doing,” what exactly will the students, parents, and communities be rising up to encourage excellence and performance OF?

13. The A-F card is not a measure of “teacher” effect on student learning? This part I can actually believe, since there’s a whole slew of other mechanisms in place to blame teachers for every kid they so much as see in the hallway, for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately he didn’t tell THE ENTIRE REST OF THE OKSDE, the media, the state legislature, or the state. They think it is.

14. These Report Cards are not a statment regarding a school’s quality? Seriously, do these people not even talk to one another? The building isn’t that big.

Perhaps the third and final link for public consumption can act as a sort of “tie-breaker” between the OKSDE and the OKSDE. It’s not a FAQ or a letter, but something called a Quick Reference Guide. Perfect! I can use it to quickly reference what the hell they’re talking about.

1969? What did one use to update web pages in 1969 – a hammer & chisel?

Well, OKSDE, if and when you get back from Woodstock or whatever, please consider reposting that reference guide. I can’t wait to see which side of your conflicting explanations it agrees with. In the meantime, I know I’m feeling much better about the accuracy and consistency of these A-F grades you’ve published now that I’ve seen the care and clarity you bring to explaining what they are and what they aren’t.

Related Post: Assessments & Grades – Why?

Assessments & Grades – Why?

September 20, 2014June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

The State of Oklahoma, like many others, is determined to assign numbers and letters to the schools and teachers within its purview. Like the standardized testing of students on which many of these numbers and letters are based, the conviction seems to be that if you just keep pretending to measure things in ridiculously oversimplified ways designed to guarantee widespread failure, you’re “reforming” the system and calling forth a brighter future for all. This is analogous to – actually, never mind the analogy. It’s just stupid.

For those of you who are not teacher-types, there are two basic types of assessment. Formative Assessment is primarily intended to ascertain student understanding or accomplishment. Do they understand the material? Can they demonstrate the skills you’ve deemed important? Are they making an effort to plow through whatever you’ve assigned in your efforts to help them ‘get it’?

We’re all familiar with tests and quizzes, but Formative Assessment can be made through discussions, artsy-fartsy projects, tickets-out-the-door, etc. In some cases the grade is the grade, and in others students are expected to redo, relearn, retry, etc. Either way, the goal is to figure out what’s going well and what’s not, and to adjust, or to identify what students do or don’t get, and decide what you – and they – can maybe do about that. The “grades” handed out by the State of Oklahoma make little claim of such goals, and our legislature clearly has no intention of adjusting or contributing in any way. So… THAT’s not the purpose of these statewide ‘report cards’.

Why do students fail? Some kids are doing the best they can, and just don’t get it. They are mostly present and involved, but just aren’t there yet. Our job is to figure out how to help them. Far more fail simply from not doing what they could or should be doing – in other words, by choice or something that looks a great deal like choice. We don’t write them off, or use this as an excuse not to try different approaches, but solutions begin with identifying sources of problems – not with the scores assigned after the fact.

The State of Oklahoma and the OKSDE have shown a determined lack of interest in the underlying sources of low achievement. It would actually be a huge step forward if they merely covered their ears and ran about yelling ‘NANANANA ICANTHEARYOU NANANANA ICANTHEARYOU!’ Even in the classroom, the oversimplification of A B C D F hinders recognition that no two kids excel, survive, or fail in the same way, or for the same reasons. Whatever the root of shortcomings, our question is the same – what can we as teachers, as teams, as districts, do differently so more kids DO succeed? Even when many factors are undeniably out of our control – home life, background, socio-economics, DNA, etc. – any ethical educator asks themselves what they COULD try… what they COULD do.

Which, as I may have mentioned, the state has shown absolutely no interest in considering.

Summative Assessment is the other category. It’s the ‘BIG TEST’ at the end of a unit or a semester. These attempt to document what students “walk away with” in knowledge and skills. The data can identify strengths and weaknesses of individual teachers so we can help each other improve, or help compare classes from year to year. For students it’s generally the finish line, for better or worse – here’s how you did, now off with thee.

What type of assessment you choose depends on your purpose. That sounds rather obvious, but it’s easy to fall into doing stuff mostly because that’s just… how it’s done. But grades should have a purpose. Otherwise, why bother?

Each semester, 18 weeks of a student’s experience in a given class – their effort, their understanding, their organization, their attitude, their ability – is summarized by a single number between 0 – 100, which in turn translates to one of 5 letters. This is, of course, inane. But it’s been how we’ve been doing things for so long it’s rather entrenched. That number and letter could mean so many different things they’re essentially useless as formative assessment. They’re only real functions are as carrots, sticks, or labels.

Most teachers still give these numbers and letters – they’re pretty much required – but we tweak them based on a variety of formal and informal assessments of our own. We tell students their grades, but we spend far more time talking them through more specific, potentially useful feedback about what they seem to be doing well and what they might try instead if they’re not. In other words, while we still retain the trappings of an outmoded grading model, we do our best within structure to more fully discern and more effectively assist.

The A-F Report Card given by the State of Oklahoma to its public schools each year does none of the things assessment is supposed to do. It provides no support, and intentionally limits the data it is willing to consider. There are no adjustments on the part of the state based on how well a given school is doing, and no conversation regarding options for improvement. It’s not even measuring most of the things we claim are most valuable to us. It is merely calculated and published, and each year more and more schools are sent to sit in the corner with their ‘dunce’ caps on.

If the goal isn’t to help struggling schools, and there’s no state interest served merely by comparing apple schools to the orange, what exactly is the purpose? Is the OKSDE going to call our parents and ask for a meeting? Are our state legislators going to suggest we be tested for meds or glasses? Best case scenario, what are we hoping happens as a result?

I suppose they could be onto some cutting edge pedagogy I’ve overlooked. Perhaps if I just keep posting my kids grades in the main hallway outside the front office, I’ll be the highest standards most teachingest educator ever! I won’t even lesson plan or teach anymore, and when kids ask for help, I’ll explain I have so many obligations and just can’t spare the time or resources unless it’s to give them more tests to post.

A teacher who just kept failing more and more kids while providing less and less assistance or supplies would be condemned as completely useless and unethical. A state that just keeps failing more and more schools while providing less and less is the same – but moreso.

Related Post: #OKSDE & The A-F School Report Card

Related Post: He Tests… He Scores!