This writer teaches in Pennsylvania. He wants to know when he will have time to teach again. He says about some 40 days of the school year are now devoted to testing. His students plead with him to know when will they have a “regular” day again? When will they have a day when he is teaching and they are learning?
When will our legislators figure out that testing is not teaching? That test scores do not go up because of taking more tests? That children don’t learn more when they get more testing and less instruction?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I hear this all the time from teachers around the country. A third of the school year is being given to a) doing practice tests, b) doing test prep, and c) actually taking the tests. In addition, the teachers’ free time is being spent doing workshops on testing and accountability measures and “data chats.” In some school systems, it’s even worse. Almost ALL instructional time is being given to online worksheets-on-a-screen addressing particular standards in preparation for the tests. Such is particularly the case in a lot of charters. In other words, in some schools, almost all instruction has been replaced with test prep. The opportunity costs are enormous.
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The spring testing has begun in my classroom. Last week we began with the Degrees of Reading Power test, where children have reading passages and choose the missing word and bubble in the answer. The passages get increasingly difficult. Children done early must sit and wait quietly while others finish. I watched one little guy merrily coloring in bubbles, but I’m not too sure he actually read anything! He finished first, but he is not in any way my highest reader.Some children finished a half hour before the straggers. Have you ever tried keeping a seven year-old quiet for thirty minutes? Now multiply that by twenty. The kids were very fidgety. It was the most tedious hour they have spent in my classroom all year and the most stressful for me. We all rejoiced when it was over. Unfortunately for them, this is their first taste of many such assessments to come.
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Educational malpractice at its finest!!
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Two comments:
1. I equate Diane’s comment about legislators realizing (or not) that taking more tests means higher test scores with an earlier belieft that more rigor meant taking more of a particular subject, i.e. math. Just because a student may be required to have more math credits for graduation doesn’t mean that the student is taking a more rigorous curriculum.
2. In 2009, our (Kentucky’s) legislator knew that these practice tests were taking away from teaching. (We’ve been ‘doing’ accountability since the early ’90s.) When those laws were rewritten, the stipulation was put in that all accountability testing be completed within the last 14 days of the school year. Of course, since then, many of those legislators have been appointed to higher positions and we’ve had a change in state leadership, which pushes the whole “data driven” discussion. I’ve heard a number of teachers complaining about overtesting during the school year. We do kindergarten screening and people here are concerned about the new ACT ASPIRE (http://www.act.org/products/k-12-act-aspire/). I understand Alabama is already going down this path.
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I think legislators may already know, but they are bought by Pearson.
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So much for project based learning that requires development over time …
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Yep. Testing is like going to the doctor with an appendicitis, and all he does is take your temperature every fifteen minutes until you’re dead.
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What I notice is after the spring tests are done, usually be the end of April the students check-out and shut down and real lerning drastically declines. They are so burnt out from testing and they are so tired from the pressures that once they know the tests are done then they are done learning.
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I know exactly how he feels. To top it off, our evaluation is tied to our students’ test scores. “Teachers, Targets, and Test Scores!” http://oldschoolteach.blogspot.com/2013/05/teachers-targets-and-test-scores.html#.UZmMTrWTg4c
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Let the testing fetishists have their way. The damage they wreak on education will be so catastrophic that the backlash will wipe them and their kid out forever. Already, a John Galt-esque mass exodus of fed-up educators has begun. First Gerald Conti (http://askingquestionsblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/gerald-conti-shrugged.html) then Kathleen Knauth (http://askingquestionsblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/first-gerald-conti-now-principled.html)… who’s next? Every retirement or resignation letter that goes viral is a crack in the dike. Let the dam burst and the flood come and the water wash away the detritus of modern, progressive, public ed.
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Oh, but they do learn more: They learn to hate reading; they learn to hate writing; they learn to hate what school has become. Analog intelligence filtered through a digital sieve… To produce diagnostic data, you have to test the students (read: “Subjects”) above their level of competency, ensuring a spiral of frustration.
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I am a retired teacher. 40 days? It seems like it was the whole year!!! The principals often would review my performance twice a year using the test results!! My kids all made improvements of at least .01% thank goodness but was it a true measure of their abilities and knowledge? Of course not, parents were often told and shown samples of in class work and projects for them to see true levels. I am a BIG fan of profiles books – a book/folder of each child’s success and achievements outside of testing. Are they still in existence? .
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It’s so frustrating. And yet the madness gets worse. In N.C. kindergarten through 3rd grade teachers will get brand new I-Pads next year (in lieu of a salary increase) (again.) The I-Pads are to make continuous testing easier! The new software will track kids’ progress all year and pop up when it’s time to test again. Principals can monitor this. The state can too! Exciting times for testing…
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