Eliminating Tests Through Continual Assessment
by Leslie Tyler
We’re at an inflection point with our approach to testing and measurement …
“Common Core was such a good idea,” remarked a middle school
administrator I recently spoke with. “But then the testing ruined it.”
My colleagues and I at Edulastic hear this all the time, as we continue
to provide teachers, administrators, and school districts a free,
easy-to-use online assessment platform for K-12 teachers that allows
them to track student’s progress toward Common Core State Standards as
well as giving teachers access to create and share fully customized
assignments.
Educators have been working on the transition to the new Common Core
State Standards over the past 4-5 years. But last year’s final
implementation step – administering the standardized tests meant to
ascertain whether students met the more rigorous standards – has caused
enough controversy to undo that work, overturning the standards
themselves in some states. To date, at least 10 states have abandoned
Common Core or have announced intentions to do so. President Obama concurred
with the test critics, saying,
“Learning is about so much more than
just filling in the right bubble. So we’re going to… make sure that
we’re not obsessing about testing.’’
So what went wrong? Besides the wholesale change in the test content
and delivery, the primary mistake was placing such a large bet on the
outcomes. Results could affect federal funding. Teachers and
administrators could be fired and “failing” schools taken over or
closed. With these types of penalties, testing changed completely from a
vital part of teaching and learning into a ruler to rap knuckles.
The Upside of Tests
Good teachers have been giving tests for centuries to understand what
students know and what they still need to learn. Such so-called
“formative” tests vary widely in method and definition – from students’
reflecting on their work to a quiz on last night’s reading – but they
nevertheless provide essential information to teachers and students
about what to cover next. In fact, recent research shows that formative assessment actually helps students retain what they learn.
While it’s a bit Pollyannaish to propose replacing standardized tests
with formative ones, we could eliminate the most negative effects by
doing more formative assessments.
Following are some of the biggest testing pain points and ways to alleviate them through low-stakes, continual assessment:
Too much time away from teaching
In a survey Edulastic conducted last
summer, we found that educators’ top concern with the new tests was the
time required of students: 70% were somewhat or very concerned about it.
Unlike formative assessments, which provide immediate data on
understanding so that teachers can adjust instruction, educators do not
get results from standardized tests until it’s too late to do anything
about them. A recent study
on testing released by the Council of the Great City Schools found that
39% of school districts had to wait 2-4 months to get test results,
often not arriving until after school was out for the year. This is
where new products such as Edulastic come in—allowing teachers to save
time and instantly see each student’s areas of security and struggle,
automatically grading and producing reports.
Increased anxiety for students and teachers
Having just one chance to show what you
know, with stiff penalties for failure, increases anxiety for teachers
and students. In contrast, formative techniques like pre-tests and
post-tests help students focus on and practice the most important
concepts. Continual assessment reduces anxiety because it’s designed to
reveal what a student has learned and has yet to learn, as opposed to
whether the student has succeeded or failed.
Lack of reliable data on mastery or progress
Perhaps the most discouraging thing about
our current standardized testing scheme is the scarcity of data it
produces on student learning. Continual formative assessment produces
thousands of time-series data points, allowing educators to say with
confidence that a student has mastered a standard or skill. To get this
level of confidence from a single, comprehensive test, students would
need to answer dozens of questions for each standard, requiring hours of
testing (see pain point #1).
Clearing Roadblocks to Change
Historically, standardized tests aimed to easily compare student
performance (and by proxy teacher competency). Unfortunately, they are
simply inadequate for this task. But how might we answer vital questions
like, “How are our schools doing?” and “What do we need to adjust?”
To answer these questions at all levels – from individual students to
whole states – we need more formative assessment practice and better
data collection systems. Many teachers and schools already make
formative and common assessments part of their curriculum. Grade level
teachers review results together to figure out what’s working and what
needs to be revised or redone. We need more support for this type of
professional development, and programs like Edulastic provide insight
into student understanding through webinars, DIY training materials, and
in-personal professional development sessions.
Second, we need better, more standardized data collection systems.
Providing teachers banks of high-quality assessment items to include in
their continual assessment mix will yield comparative data on student
performance while promoting learning. Aligning teacher-created formative
assessments with standards allows for standardized data collection –
instead of standardized tests – to exponentially expand the number of
data points available on student proficiency.
We’re at an inflection point with our approach to testing and
measurement. Educators have access to tools, providing them better
research, technology and data to create a new, more efficient system of
comprehensive assessment. If we can’t eliminate standardized tests, we
can at least reduce their downside. And spend the time and money saved
on assessment practices that promote learning and get us closer to the
answer to “How are we doing?”
