Thoughts On Boston.com Story About "Testing" MA Kindergartners
Here is the link to the story:
This whole thing seems like a Trojan Horse kind of move. First off, I want to address the words test and assess. I find it interesting that the headline writer uses the word test, but in the article they use the word assess. In some sense the words are synonyms, but I think the connotation one has of a test in a school setting is a student and answering question via either a written test or verbal question. This does not appear what the state wants to do as an assessment; instead what they want is (quoting from the article) ” teachers would measure students’ early knowledge of literacy and math by carefully observing and questioning them during classroom activities, meticulously documenting their performance against a set of state standards, and including samples of their work. They will also take note of students’ social, cognitive, emotional, and physical development. “ As long as the assessment is done via observations over long periods of time, I am completely fine with it.
Here is the thing, I can’t speak for every school in the state, but I know I essentially already do that; in addition, anecdotally, all of my friends/colleges that work at a pretty large variety of schools across the state already do this. All of this seems like pretty similar to standard procedure of what current goes on in schools across the state with one key aspect being different; this appears to create data that will not only be used at the individual classroom level or school level, but at a larger state level to allocate resources to students most in need. All of this sounds fine, but here is where I fear that it might be a Trojan Horse.
Once you start collecting the data, there is danger of it being used for a variety of purposes. For example, it might be used as part of a merit pay scheme or as a teacher evaluation tool or even for a school or district wide evaluation tool; if that occurs, then it will start to create perverse incentives when we are assessing children. If a Principal starts to want to see better “results” and then puts pressure on teachers to improve performance in the classroom it could lead to situations where people start fudging the numbers which is has become an epidemic in the older grades already. Thus, I am leery of this.
Here is what would be my plan to assess students so teachers better can meet their needs.
• First better communication between preschool programs whether they be Head Start, Bright Horizons, or everything in between. Most Preschools have a treasure trove of information on each child that often goes unused when the child moves on to Elementary School. To give myself a shameless plug I asked Superintended Johnson about this at the Thrive in 5 conference last year and she mentioned that they were trying to take steps to have better communication between preschools and Elementary School and with the parent’s permission have everything in a child’s file go from the preschool to the elementary school.
• Second, we need a lot more parent involvement in assessment. I was agree by my former Professor Todd Rose who argued that performance is greatly affected by context. Here is an example of what I mean; I remember having a little girl in my class who was very quiet pretty much the entire year. When I talked to her mom, she mentioned that when she was home she would tell her mom about books we had read, activities we have done, and sing songs she learned at school. When at school, when we were singing songs or reading stories she would literally just sit there and not sing or say anything. Even if I did long term objective observations I would never have recorded any observations about her doing something as simple as singing the ABCs. However, since I had her mom’s input, I knew that she could do a lot more than what she demonstrated at school. For whatever reason, in the context of school she was different than in the context of home. This is very typical of young children as any parent or teacher will most likely tell. Hence, my belief that any assessment tool that does not have family input is useless. I know my school and many others use the Ages and Stages Questionnaire for parents to help assess their children at home.http://agesandstages.com/ This tool is not terrible, but it is kind of antiseptic. It asks basic questions like does your child know their colors, letters, and all that. I find that many parents don’t bother filling out and returning it, fill it out without giving it much thought, or are kind of confused by it. We have an English and Spanish version of it, but not for other languages. The only way to get better parent /family involvement in the assessment process is by the teacher building a trusting and respectful relationship with the family. Trust and respect between a teacher and a family is something that is very difficult to collect data on. Theoretically, a school could send home an questionnaire that asks parents if they trust their child’s teacher and or feel respected by the teacher. But again, I think if parents believe that teachers are only trying to build a trusting and respectful relationship only to gain good marks on a questionnaire it might corrupt the whole process because it might appear that the teacher’s actions are not genuine.
Here is the thing, I can’t speak for every school in the state, but I know I essentially already do that; in addition, anecdotally, all of my friends/colleges that work at a pretty large variety of schools across the state already do this. All of this seems like pretty similar to standard procedure of what current goes on in schools across the state with one key aspect being different; this appears to create data that will not only be used at the individual classroom level or school level, but at a larger state level to allocate resources to students most in need. All of this sounds fine, but here is where I fear that it might be a Trojan Horse.
Once you start collecting the data, there is danger of it being used for a variety of purposes. For example, it might be used as part of a merit pay scheme or as a teacher evaluation tool or even for a school or district wide evaluation tool; if that occurs, then it will start to create perverse incentives when we are assessing children. If a Principal starts to want to see better “results” and then puts pressure on teachers to improve performance in the classroom it could lead to situations where people start fudging the numbers which is has become an epidemic in the older grades already. Thus, I am leery of this.
Here is what would be my plan to assess students so teachers better can meet their needs.
• First better communication between preschool programs whether they be Head Start, Bright Horizons, or everything in between. Most Preschools have a treasure trove of information on each child that often goes unused when the child moves on to Elementary School. To give myself a shameless plug I asked Superintended Johnson about this at the Thrive in 5 conference last year and she mentioned that they were trying to take steps to have better communication between preschools and Elementary School and with the parent’s permission have everything in a child’s file go from the preschool to the elementary school.
• Second, we need a lot more parent involvement in assessment. I was agree by my former Professor Todd Rose who argued that performance is greatly affected by context. Here is an example of what I mean; I remember having a little girl in my class who was very quiet pretty much the entire year. When I talked to her mom, she mentioned that when she was home she would tell her mom about books we had read, activities we have done, and sing songs she learned at school. When at school, when we were singing songs or reading stories she would literally just sit there and not sing or say anything. Even if I did long term objective observations I would never have recorded any observations about her doing something as simple as singing the ABCs. However, since I had her mom’s input, I knew that she could do a lot more than what she demonstrated at school. For whatever reason, in the context of school she was different than in the context of home. This is very typical of young children as any parent or teacher will most likely tell. Hence, my belief that any assessment tool that does not have family input is useless. I know my school and many others use the Ages and Stages Questionnaire for parents to help assess their children at home.http://agesandstages.com/ This tool is not terrible, but it is kind of antiseptic. It asks basic questions like does your child know their colors, letters, and all that. I find that many parents don’t bother filling out and returning it, fill it out without giving it much thought, or are kind of confused by it. We have an English and Spanish version of it, but not for other languages. The only way to get better parent /family involvement in the assessment process is by the teacher building a trusting and respectful relationship with the family. Trust and respect between a teacher and a family is something that is very difficult to collect data on. Theoretically, a school could send home an questionnaire that asks parents if they trust their child’s teacher and or feel respected by the teacher. But again, I think if parents believe that teachers are only trying to build a trusting and respectful relationship only to gain good marks on a questionnaire it might corrupt the whole process because it might appear that the teacher’s actions are not genuine.
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