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Why Not Opt In?
By David Torrance
There is a small but noisy movement trying to convince parents and
students to “opt-out” of, or in other words, refuse to participate in
Ohio’s new testing program for Ohio elementary, middle school, and high
school students. As a high school administrator, I am hoping that
every student in the state will opt IN, and do the best they can on
every test they have the opportunity to take.
The primary reason students should take the various tests being given
over the next four weeks is that these tests will help to improve the
public education system in Ohio. With the data to be gathered
from these tests, high school administrators like me will be able to
see just what kind of learning is happening in not only our building
but across our district on a yearly basis. We will be able to
identify strong students, and those who might need extra help. We
will be able to identify teachers who seem to do an above-average job
with some concepts, and those who may need assistance teaching
others. Families who ask their children to not take these tests
will be working to prevent the data from helping their own children,
and those of every parent in the District.
There are those who say that these kinds of tests are an unfair measure
of a students’ ability. They claim that any “one time” test is
bound to be unfair to some number of students, possibly all
students. I would suggest that, by and large, this argument is an
empty one. People undertake any number of “one-time tests” every
day. These tests range from the mundane (“Did I make sure the
change I received was correct?”) to demanding (“Did I earn my license
to practice medicine?”). Most people pass their tests with flying
colors, and we generally tie their success to their ability to learn
and use information. That is why people are tested – to prove
that they have learned some valued set of tools and information, and
that they can use them successfully. But yes, some people do fail
their tests. And while a small percentage of those who fail vow
never to be tested again, the vast majority of people resolve to work
harder, prepare better, and to succeed the next time they are
tested.
There is no place where people face more “one-time” tests than public
school. From the “Chapter One Exam” to the Semester Exam to the
Final Exam at the end of the course, schools give test after test after
test. As I said, it’s how we determine if our students have
learned the information we’ve given them, and how we learn if our
students can use that information. NOT testing if students have
learned these things would be an injustice to students, because we
would not know if our students had truly learned what we asked them to
learn.
Are there concerns about the system? Of course there are.
There are very good reasons to oppose not allowing a student more than
one chance to demonstrate their understanding of and ability to use
information. There are valid concerns that the questions being
asked, or the answers being expected, or the rubrics used to grade
writing on these tests do not accurately reflect either the standards
being instructed or a student’s understanding of the material.
There are legitimate concerns about how the data resulting from these
tests could be interpreted wrongly to punish students, teachers, or
entire school districts. These are not “problems with the test”,
however – they are problems having to do with the transparency
surrounding how the tests are created, administered, and scored, as
well as how the data is to be interpreted and evaluated. To
address these concerns, however, the tests have to be administered and
taken in good faith by all schools.
“Opting out” of the tests will not provide any basis for improving the
testing system, nor will it help educators learn about the strengths
and weaknesses of their teaching styles or strategies. “Opting
out” will not help educators determine if the manner in which the tests
are administered has a negative effect on student performance.
“Opting out” will not cause legislators to consider changing or
eliminating the testing system. But “opting out” could be held
against students when they try to graduate. “Opting out” might
prevent a District, or a building, or a teacher from learning something
about how they are working with students. And “opting out” could
lead to the State Legislature or the Federal Government to punish a
district as a whole by withholding financial support which would be
used to help all students in a District.
The better course is to “opt IN”, and encourage students to not only
take the tests being given, but to do the best they can. This
should be followed by demands that the State Legislature make available
everything having to do with the test – from test questions to answer
keys to grading rubrics. Let there be conversation about the way
questions are asked, the material covered, and the manner in which
answers were interpreted. Let the process evolve and grow and
develop over time into one that we can all believe is a fair and
accurate measure of student achievement. This way, every
community can know what is being done to help educate students – and
what needs yet to be done to do so with the highest degrees of quality
and success.
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