Oh, no! Dana Goldstein visited Memphis, where she found that arts teachers are using portfolio assessments.
I suppose that is a step up from online standardized tests and the old-fashioned machine-scored computerized tests, but it is still a very bad idea.
The whole premise of testing is that teachers cannot be trusted to reach responsible judgments about student work.
And the purpose of the assessment is not to help students but to devise a numerical rating so teachers of the arts may be evaluated and held “accountable” for student progress. If the student is drawing better pictures, the teacher must be a better teacher. If the student work does not get better, the teacher is a bad teacher. He or she will be rated ineffective and may lose tenure or compensation and may be fired.
If we cared about teacher professionalism, we would let teachers teach without tying their work to test scores or portfolios.
If we cared about creativity, we would let students engage wholeheartedly in the arts without measuring whether they are getting “better” at what they are doing. Almost no one learns to play a musical instrument and gets worse by the day; and if they do, it is because they didn’t practice, didn’t care, and didn’t try. If they try, they will improve. And any teacher of the arts will know that they are trying and improving without need for an assessment to prove it. To “prove it” to whom? To a supervisor? To the state commissioner of investigation?
Let’s face it. None of this assessment mania is about kids or education or teacher quality. It is about control and lack of respect for teachers.
Follow your instincts, Dana. Whether assessed by a machine or by a portfolio, the arts should be performed and experienced, not measured.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What’s insane here is the rush to create assessments without regard for the curriculum. The assessments, then, will end up determining and limiting the curriculum.
Assessment in the arts takes place all the time. Students assess themselves when they practice; teachers assess them during lessons. Auditions are a formof assessment–and students must often perform well in order to pass.
Children do not necessarily improve througqh practice–or they may improve in some ways while developing bad habits in others. Assessments can help catch these problems early on.
I was serious about the cello from the time I started playing. I practiced every day (four hours per day at my peak) and was told by my teachers that I had considerable ability. However, each new teacher I had (for the first four years or so) told me I had been taught incorrectly and had to start over. How could this be? Part of the problem was that each teacher had his or her take on how to hold the bow, etc. It wasn’t until high school and college that I learned the underlying principles. Assessment would not in itself fix this, but if combined with a curriculum, it could help foster a common language, common things to look for.
For students learning an instrument for pure enjoyment, this matter is less urgent–though it’s hard to enjoy an instrument if you’re constantly struggling with technique.
In any case, assessment in the arts is intensely important and complex. I share your concern, though, that it will take a crude and constricting form in schools.
I highly recommend the pape “Assessment on Our Own Terms” by Samuel Hope and Mark Wait. It focuses on musical assessment at the higher levels, but the critique of accountability overdrive applies to K-12 education as well.
LikeLike
I should explain that “Assessment on Our Terms” is a NASM (National Association of Schools of Music) policy brief. It can be found here:
Click to access NASM_Assessment%20On%20Our%20Own%20Terms-Plain%20Text.pdf
LikeLike
Diane, Greece Central School District instituted both visual arts and music assessments, probably ten years ago–multiple choice, bubble in the correct answer at fifth and eighth or ninth grade. Second grades–yes, second grade students had to circle the correct answer, again multiple choice. Essay responses were required at all three levels, and all three levels HAD to use complete, well-constructed sentences. A second grade student who wrote so expressively about the joy that music gave to her–all in complete sentences and bringing tears to the eyes of all present–was given 0 or 1 points for her answer because she did not answer the question. What she expressed, however, was exactly what one would wish for all students in the arts… Don’t even get me started!!! The second grade assessments were finally eliminated after I had been retired a couple of years. I’m sure that their elimination had more to do with the cost of paper, copying, processing…than with the fact that the assessments, forced onto us by the arts department chair as a means to justifying her position, had nothing to do with what and how children that age learn in the arts.
Arts teachers–visual, theatrical, musical, dance–assess their students each and every time we meet with them. We watch and listen. We observe how our students move, dance, sing, play their instrument, speak, memorize, listen and analyze works of music/art/drama–others and their own as they are engaged. Learning in the arts has long been considered the domain of the “talented” and “gifted.” All children learn in and through the arts. They learn the content. They learn how to do content. They learn how to critique their own doing and that of others.
So much of what children learn in the arts parallels, reinforces, and opens up pathways in other subject areas. They learn vocabulary, not limited to the vocabulary of the art. They learn history, languages, math, science. They learn about themselves and their culture, and about others and other cultures. Students learn to work together, to truly listen to one another to see how their work fits with another.
Diane, I could go on and on and on about the value of arts in education and in brain development–haven’t even touched on that! Music learning has an effect on the brain. Synapses are made. MRI images show the brain firing when subjects are engaged in music-making and music-listening. I am convinced that similar things happen when people dance, when they create works in the visual arts. And who knows what goes on inside us when we take on the role of another in dramatic productions?!?! What does it mean for us to be someone or something else?!?!
Arts are a pleasure, an immense and life-giving pleasure for those of us who live, work, and play in them. But arts are about more than joy and pleasure. They make us human. Science, another area that gets short shrift, is just beginning to uncover the significant role that arts play in the totality of our growth and development. My own bottom line asks, who wouldn’t want a few more brain cells, better health, and the riches that the arts give to us????
LikeLike
I agree that assements are not true predictors of a teacher’s credibility.
They waste valuable time, add undue stress and can lead to a student feeling inferior. The focus for ineffective teaching should be on collaboration-strengthening the weak. When we admit that that there will always be differences in quality and then do what we can to create a harmonious relationships; one where teachers work together, sharing their ideas to help with defiencies of students and teachers alike.
LikeLike
In the brave new world where only money conveys worth, children who do not have wealthy parents (and do not attend expensive private schools) are not worthy of experiencing, exploring or enjoying anything in school. They are there to learn to work at menial and meaningless tasks because they and their teachers are not to be trusted. I taught art for 36 years and the subject itself struck fear into the hearts of administrators because they hadn’t the foggiest idea what was going on. But at least we were part of a child’s public education and nobody was worried about testing what the kids learned. Art classes were marginal, but we were important enough to be included. I am at a loss to understand how the public believes demonizing teachers and giving tests will make anything better, unless it’s just money talking, there’s money for test makers, money for charter profits and money for the politician’s campaigns. I was very fortunate to have taught when people supported public education.
LikeLike
I remember the first clay bowl I made. I remember the paper-mache masks and the mixing of the goopy glue. I remember painting on the easel and oh, yea, the finger painting. I remember the song flute. I remember the songs we sang. I remember the dances we learned. I remember starting clarinet lessons at school in the fourth grade and the grade school band and orchestra. I remember the concert, swing, pep and marching bands in junior high and high school. I remember the drawing I did of the roofs and trees out of the third floor high school art room. Yes, I remember! What kinds of memories will today’s students have if the arts are eliminated from their education or that they have to take a standardized test knowing their teacher may be dismissed because they didn’t score high enough on a test? What kind of quality of life will they have as an adult?
This testing madness has got stop!
LikeLike
I think you’re missing the point of portfolios, which art classrooms have used long before the testing craze. I had one arts teacher that had us keep “process-folios” to help us visualize how much progress we’d made. As we move toward performance based assessments and other new assessments with the common core, I think that the arts will have a lot they can teach the ed world about process, product, and revising and critiquing student work.
LikeLike
I think you will discover that the point of the portfolios is to obtain numbers. The nature of portfolio assessment should be to produce qualitative judgments, not numbers.
LikeLike
“The nature of portfolio assessment should be to produce qualitative judgments, not numbers”
Exactly, one of the underlying fallacies with grades, standards and standardized testing is that one can “quantify” a “quality”. In a logical fashion when the base of a particular practice is a falsehood then the results more likely than not are going to be false (every now and again one stumbles across a correct result/answer by chance).
As Russ Ackhoff has stated (paraphrased) “If what you are doing is wrong [based on falsehoods] and you attempt to get better at what you are doing, you are getting ‘wronger’ (his term). So it is better to do the right thing wrong than to do the wrong thing right that way when you get better at doing the right thing you are getting it ‘righter’.” A simply stated truth, eh?
LikeLike
As a physical education teacher in Colorado, I am waiting with trepidation about the coming standardized assessments that will make up half of my evaluation (check out Senate Bill 191 for more information about that). If the assessments are going to be on the academic components of physical education, then I guess I will need to get regular classroom desks and chairs for my students, and I will leave the ball carts, hockey sticks, parachutes, and the rest of the really cool equipment I have that encourages movement in the equipment room. That would be sad. So, they can measure my students on their fitness levels. If this is the case, I would like to have control over my students diet, their activities before and after school (how much time they spend playing video games, how much time they spend in physical activity), and when they go to bed and get up. After all, if I am going to be held accountable, I would like to have control over those things for which I am ask to be accountable.
LikeLike
Sean,
“I am waiting with trepidation about the coming standardized assessments that will make up half of my evaluation. . . .”
You (and your students) have my sincerest condolences!
LikeLike
TeaChers have to do three things. Figure out what to teach. How to teach it. And find out if the kids are learning that stuff. We new to assess somehow. I believe we can Di this through different ways. First we invented project based assessment. So we are cool there. But I wonder how much kids are able to mimic others art or the teachers example. Do they know? Do they mimic? Our district is starting a new way of assessing. We will assess art element knowledge through written assessments. Then we will continue to assess art creation through projects. Finally we will assess responding to art through various activities we do through art discussions and reflections.
Are we art store clerks or art teachers?
LikeLike