As a part of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which was signed into law by President George W. Bush on January 8, 2002, all public schools are required to administer a state-wide standardized test annually to all students. The scores are analyzed in many different ways and are used as a determination whether the school has taught the students well. Schools spend tons of money on test preparation on things such as books/workbooks with practice items, after school programs for tutoring, staff members who are dedicated to a role of being a coach for teachers (so they can teach the students how to pass the test), pep rallies and other types of assemblies to get the students ramped up for the test, and “practice” assessments. For these mock tests, the school is basically shut down for a week at a time and all staff members are required to assist by administering the test to all the students who are testing age. For the real test, typically given in the spring (March or April), you basically have to go through TSA security to get onto campus and into each classroom so they can guarantee the test was provided in the manner it was design and there are no loopholes that might skew the results.
In Maryland, there is a huge emphasis placed on achieving results that are either within the “proficient” or “advanced” range meaning that at least 50% of the responses were correct. The results come out sometime over the summer and in the fall there is typically a display of some kind indicating the names of students who scored within the passing range. They are recognized and rewarded; all the students want their name on that wall. It’s a big deal! In addition, schools are rewarded for having high numbers of students within the passing range. Overall, the teachers want the students to pass and the students want to pass. This has been drilled into their heads since the initiation of high-stakes testing.
Working in an area with high levels of low economic status, my students are already at a high risk for not passing the test. Working with students who are identified with an educational disability, they have two strikes against them. There is some debate about how NCLB lines up with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The National Council for Disabilities has stated that the individual nature of IDEA is “inconsistent with the group nature of NCLB." They worry that NCLB focuses too much on standardized testing and not enough on the work-based experience necessary for obtaining jobs in the future. The IDEA’s focus on various measures branches from its foundation in Individualized Education Plans for students with disabilities (IEP). Each student who has an IEP is given individual goals that are often not on their grade level in order to help them get on or closer to grade level. Under the IEP, students could be able to legally have lowered success criteria for academic success. However, these students are given state tests with standards and objectives on their grade level and not at their instructional level.
In Maryland, there are three levels/versions of the assessment; most of my students take a modified version of the test which uses simplified language, has fewer options for multiple choice questions, and does away with the writing portion. As part of their IEP, the students also receive accommodations to help bridge the gap between their instructional level (where they are functioning) and their grade level (where they are tested). In some situations, I have seen where these accommodations enable to students to be dependent upon calculation devices, a human reader, and a scribe to the point where they don’t learn how to do basic math skills, read, or write independently. The students are coached that they can request for repetition of questions and parts of or the entire test to be read and re-read to them. They are often given multiple breaks and extended time so they can basically take as much time as they need to complete the assessment. For students that do the written portion of the test, spelling and grammar errors are not deducted from the final score. Overall, the difficulty of the test is reduced, the students are given all kinds of support, and time is only spent on teaching and preparing for math and language arts assessments so that these kids can pass this test. Sadly, last year only 4 of my students performed within the “proficient” range within math and everyone scored within the “basic” range for reading.
This week, I attended a meeting for a 3rd grade student who has a bilateral mild sensorineural hearing loss. There is a strong family history of hearing loss and many of his family members have attended the program for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students within the school district. This is actually one student that is not on my caseload; his language and speech articulation skills are within functional limits for his age and do not negatively impact his academic achievement. His family expressed concerns regarding his disfluent speech. Even though he does not qualify for speech/language services, when I work with his classmates each week, he joins our session and participates in the activities that I’m teaching. I have been doing this with him for the past 3 years and noticed that he stutters occasionally, but haven’t had concerns because he uses strategies to make himself understood with minimal prompting and is functioning on grade level.
Because he has had an IEP for several years, he was eligible to take the modified version of the test. As a 3rd grader this will be his first year of taking the test, but in October and January he took the mock test. At that time, he took the modified version of the test with several accommodations and performed within the “advanced” range. Considering results from academic testing that showed he is solidly on grade level and the results of the mock test, the team proposed that he take the regular version of the test instead of the modified version. This is great news and not something that is discussed with most of the students in our school/program.
The problem I have with this suggestion is that at this point, the test is two weeks away. This change is going to happen so that he will take the regular version of the test with fewer accommodations (because he is doing so well) and he will have no time to prepare to take the different version of the test. I understand that there is no justification for keeping him on the modified version of the test, but it’s not fair to change things up so drastically at this point. It’s like a person taking tennis lessons for months of daily practice on a clay court then having a change of plans at the last minute to play on a grass court. He can still use the same strategies to understand the material and answer the questions, but it’s a different format with different kinds of supports. While having this discussion at the IEP team meeting with the father present, my team rationalized that he would do fine and really, the scores are a report card of the school and not of the individual student. I was the only one who thought it was unfair to the student to make this change right now. This student did not qualify for speech/language services; I had no goals/objectives on the IEP; I didn’t need to stay at this meeting; my professional opinion didn’t seem to matter…so I politely excused myself from the meeting. I have to choose my battles and this one isn’t worth the fight.
I think NCLB could use some auxiliary legislation to address the variatons in student ability. I propose NCPT (no child pushed through) and a completely new concept NCHB (no child held back) as in held back from learning at their own level no matter how advanced it may be. I always thought this act needed a bit of tweaking. But I would have to agree with you, I wouldn't want this test thrown at my child with no preparation. He's going to expect to see a modified version and may be overwhelmed by the change in format. He's not ready for the writing portion at all! Those scores do also have an impact on the individual child regardless of what the school says. I wish more parents educated themselves. Then they could be better prepared to go to bat for their children without being pushed around by the school systems and intimidated by the eloquent words used to talk above parents heads.
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