Those of us in the elementary school world, at least in the building where I work, are still finishing up our battery of spring testing. The older kids have finished their state assessments, and the younger ones are just getting started on their version. A lot of stress and anxiety comes with this time of year, both before the tests are given and after the results have been reported. Maybe it’s because I’ve been in the game for more than a few orbits now, but I don’t seem to worry about all of these tests as much as some other people, and definitely much less than I used to. In that spirit, here are some of the reasons why I think I’ve found a way to minimize, or at least balance out, the emotional responses that always hit teachers this time of year:
Tests represent how a student performed on one given day.
Many tests contain cultural biases of which even the test writers themselves often are not even aware.
If I know the day before the test is taken that I’ve done everything I could to prepare my students to take it, I can sleep well the night before.
Standardized tests scores from elementary school have never kept anyone out of the college of their choice.
The stress a lot of kids carry into the test can be a detriment to their focus.
It seems that each year the rules or conditions of the tests are slightly modified as the testing professionals continually strive to make their assessments as truly reflective of student ability as possible. Sometimes these modifications are significant enough to make it difficult to accurately measure the amount of growth achieved during an academic year.
I once had a girl impressively vomit on a pile of answer books stacked on my desk at the end of a testing session, and the world didn’t stop turning.
During more years than not, I can predict with somewhere around 85% accuracy what level of proficiency each of the students in my class will reach. I know their work habits. I know their strengths and weaknesses. I know who will finish too fast because they didn’t work carefully and who will take too long because they’ll overthink each question. I don’t need a test to point these things out to me.
Generations of us went through school successfully without being subjected to so many assessments that spring in the elementary school is commonly referred to as “testing season.”
Sometimes pandemics come along and throw all the validity of anything positive or negative about the results into question.
The biggest service that testing provides the schools is helping staff identify what kinds of support or challenges the students will need in the coming year. Often this information isn’t all that far off from what it was before.
There are so many intangible things that students learn during the school year that can’t be measured by a test.
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