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Assessing Children

Teachers and public education are constantly being scrutinized, being held accountable for student achievement, rightly so, we?re talking about our future leaders, our sons and daughters.? The public has a right to know whether reforms are working, parents have a right to know if their children are meeting standards, and school districts want to know how they compare in terms of student performance.? But what exactly does that mean, and are standardized tests good measures of student achievement, are there better ways of assessing student growth?? Those in support of standardized testing say it helps school districts measure quality of curriculum and instruction; they pinpoint children?s strengths and weaknesses and have helped schools to develop strategies for dealing with educational issues (ACEI, 1991).

Standardized Tests may not be valid for the following reasons

• Children don?t often understand the importance of the tests; therefore they don?t put forth their best efforts.? When children do not understand or value testing, it does not allow the test to show us what a child knows or what a child can really do.
• Short attention spans are not conducive to long test taking, bored children may opt to just mark answers out of boredom.
• Difficulty with multi step directions is problematic for some children; testing requires page turning, bubbling, answering questions, time restraints, and waiting for tester prompts.? This is a great measure of a child?s ability to follow directions, but little else.
• These tests are often biased of culture, gender, SES, and especially language.
• Test questions are sometimes unclear

?With this in mind, is it a good idea to test young children?

My thoughts on that is that testing can be useful in terms of school accountability and reform, yet not so useful as it causes; undue stress, information is not useful and sometimes can lead to invalid concerns about student performance, some children are labeled as a result, teachers are occupied preparing and administering tests rather than focusing in on student interest, and most of all it is not conducive to supporting cooperative learning and problem solving.? I question whether testing measures intelligence and practical ability or are we measuring test-taking abilities? Objective in scoring yes, subjective in creation.

What would I like to see assessed in terms of student achievement?

I am in full support of standardized testing in determining base lines for schools to use in determining strengths, needs, and reform.? However, as important as academic achievements are for a child?s future success I also feel they should be assessed on all their intelligences, including music, art, drama, social, home language, and athletics all of which paint a completely different picture of a child?s skills, knowledge, and abilities; a holistic picture.? These skills should be viewed as just as important as those on standardized tests.

Work samples, student portfolios, performances, writing reflections, teacher checklists, photographs, routines and tasks, running records, reports and projects that show proof of a child?s development across all domains, and in all intelligences, is a holistic view of student achievement and one that parents can understand, track, and be proud of.? When these options for delivering student achievement is paired with benchmarks, families can see not only what their child is learning but where they are on a continuum providing a means to assist their child in meeting goals and objectives for learning.? If we are only testing academic skills we are not considering the abilities of the whole child.

Other information

Teachers are concerned, I can understand why.? What can be taught seems to be narrow and teachers concerned about producing high test scores are in essence teaching to the test, exploring other options to teaching may not produce the results needed on paper.? I can see how teachers can feel discouraged and frustrated. Where?s the balance?

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President Obama on Test Taking, The Huffington Post, ?March 28, 2011

?Students should take fewer standardized tests and school performance should be measured in other ways than just exams.?? Too often what we have been doing is using these tests to punish students or to in some cases, punish schools.?? Obama is pushing to rewrite education law to find tests that ?everybody agrees makes sense.?? He also stated ?schools should be judged on criteria other than student test performance.?? ?One thing I never want to see if schools that are just teaching the test because then you?re not learning about the world, you?re not learning about different cultures, you?re not learning about science, you?re not learning about math, all you?re learning about is how to fill out a little bubble on an exam.?? ?Young people do well in stuff they are interested in.?? President Obama endorsed occasional standardized testing for the sake of establishing a baseline of student ability.

Assessing Standards in India

India has celebrated economic growth, however they still fight the hands of poverty.? In 2002 India set out to enroll all 6-14 year olds in school by 2010.? Since then they have celebrated more than 98% of children having a primary school within one kilometer of their homes, 2.5 of the 2.7 million children identified with special needs have been enrolled in school. ?School attendance is improving; more children than ever between ages 6 and 14 attend school across the country.? India has made great strides in increasing access to primary education but how does achievement compare with access? One tell tale is the fact that the education system faces a shortage of resources, schools, classrooms and teachers (Guardian, 2011).

Then it comes as no surprise that assessing education has not been India?s top priority.? Priority has been on access to education over the last decade, getting children into school.? The result, a rise in enrollment rates currently at 95%, however a group of trained volunteers took on the task of assessing educational standards.? The only assessment the government carried out was a national sample once every three to four years and it didn?t cover all the educational districts.? The volunteer group found that 50% of children after five years in school could not read at expected levels; millions of children were falling behind.? Of India?s 200 million children, 195 million are now in school but fewer than 100 million are actually learning to read and do basic math.? Some states in India were well funded but were not able to translate that into effective education, ill equipped teachers and facilities are being looked at as possible reasons.? There are also concerns for ?teacher training, quality of curriculum, assessment of learning achievements, and the effect of school management?.? This has sparked a new debate about educational achievement in India schools.? Due to the poor quality of schools, children drip out before they complete five years of elementary school, and those who stay learn little.? Future plans include bringing the remaining 10 million out of school children into school, boosting facilities, and improving learning outcomes (UNICEF, 2012).

References?

http://www.unicef.org/india/children_2359.htm

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/28/obama-standardized-tests_n_841464.html

ACEI, ?On Standardized Testing: Association for Childhood Education International.? Childhood Education. Spring, 1991. pg. 130-142.

http://www.standardizedtesting.net/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/mar/15/education-goals-assessment-india-school

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