Education

Are Schools Too Test-Focused?

November 13th, 2014

The federal government requires states to test students in grades 3-12 every year, and several states, including Georgia, are starting to use scores from those tests to evaluate teachers. Some parents and educators, however, worry schools are too focused on ‘the test’.Broadcast version.

Every year, you can tell when it’s ‘high stakes test time’. Parents start posting on social media about how stressed their kids are over end-of-the-year tests.

“An annual assessment at the end of every school year for every student, that might be a bit of an overload,” says Gwinnett County Superintendent Alvin Wilbanks. Wilbanks also chairs a national group of superintendents. That group has met with U.S. Education officials to suggest changes to testing requirements. For example, Wilbanks says, staggering test years.

“I would say offer [tests] in elementary school in fourth grade, I would offer it in middle school in seventh grade, and then I would put it at the tenth grade in high school.”

Part of the problem with testing may be that consequences aren’t clear. Should students be held back if they don’t pass? To what extent, if any, should teachers be judged on scores?

“What exactly is the purpose of these tests?” says Aaron Pallas, Arthur I. Gates professor of sociology and education at Teachers College at Columbia University. “Is it to tell us about the system overall or is it to really try and hold individual teachers accountable for what students are learning? So, we need to think carefully about, ‘What are the purposes of these assessments? What are they trying to tell us and how are we going to use them?’”

That uncertainty led parent Ruth Hartman to opt her two children out of state-issued tests this year. She says schools over-emphasize the tests, which she thinks are unreliable.

“The teachers know how they’re doing,” she says. “Period. That’s what they do; that’s what they’ve been going to college for and getting masters’ and doctorates. That’s what they do. An occasional test, yes, you know the knowledge. But, it’s just too much.”

U.S. Education officials say they may recommend some of the changes to Congress, who will soon decide whether to renew the law that requires yearly testing.