State Assessment Season

It's state assessment time in my district. Children around the state are taking the the state's proficiency test for the entire month of March. I don't think that Lent and the state test occurring in the same month is a mere coincidence. Everyone is on edge and the kids are reaching their breaking points. Not to mention that Daylight Savings Time hasn't helped at all, either. I proctor the tests for three English Language Learner (ELL) students, and I have seen the pitfalls of testing this population firsthand. Since my students are ELL, they could have all parts of the math test read to them. So I was able to sit down and read aloud the directions, sentences and word problems in the math test. It is supposed to be the way to determine if a child has true math skills, by removing the language component. It does require the student to be able to understand English when it is spoken to them, which is a big assumption. While I was able to read to them for the math test, I wasn't able to read more than the test directions for the reading and writing tests. It has to be really frustrating for a student to sit there and struggle through a test that's not in your native language, a language that you've been exposed to for only a year or two. In fact, I know it's frustrating because I had a student have a complete meltdown in my room. He was inconsolable and I didn't know how to make him feel better. I wasn't sure what I could say that would make him feel better, or could comprehend. I felt trapped because he wouldn't leave my office and I had to dismiss the other students and take his test back to the secure location.

My other gripe is that the test is designed to fool students into thinking that they are doing well. The math test is especially guilty of this. It's a multiple-choice test, and without a doubt, each question has one answer choice that is possible by trying to solve the problem in a simplistic yet incorrect way. It drove me crazy because as I read the questions to my students I watched them use horrible tactics to solve them. I wanted to yell at them, but of course I had to keep everything to myself. I'm starting to think that we may need to go the Princeton Review route and talk about answers that are there to trip you. I would settle for kids trying to solve a problem, and if they do it incorrectly there answer isn't a choice. I remember that happening a few times on the SAT and GRE.

BBC