Testing Time Out

Reminder to new teachers: Tests are all temporary constructions! They give little indication of the future success of your students or insight into the effectiveness of teachers. I don't need a case study to back up what all teachers already know, but in case you want one, here are three that will support my point:

•  Standardized Tests Not Always Best Predictor of Success 
• To predict a student’s future success, look at their grades, not their IQ or SAT score 
• Students’ test scores tell us more about the community they live in than what they know

After 33 years in education, I have watched as "experts" imposed their ideas on generations of teachers and students. Teachers jumped through the direct instruction hoop and then were redirected to whole language instead. Then chalk became the enemy and we all had to have whiteboards to eliminate chalk dust's danger. We dumped tracking for flexible groups and mandated kindergarten. Students could no longer sniff the papers that were still damp from the mimeograph machines, and reel-to-reel projectors were replaced by movies on VHS. STEM education became the new buzzword and then was replaced by STEAM, and technology became the answer to our educational problems. I have gone to workshops on writing the 5 paragraph essay, 6 Traits of Writing, and responding to reading. Each one said the other was outdated. We have had Reading Recovery, Response to Intervention, Race to the Top, Mastery Teaching, No Child Left Behind, Multiple Intelligences, Constructivism, and Common Core. Gradually our once a year standardized achievement tests from 1983 were replaced by IGAP, then ISAT, PARCC, and now IAR. And where have all the acronyms gotten us? According to Education Secretary, Betsy Devos, nowhere! 

I want to quote my teenager on this one... Duh! Perhaps one of these days, some of the policy-makers will accept this timeless fact: Quality teaching hasn't changed over the years and teachers don't become better at their jobs by adding superfluous mandates. If we want to improve our educational system, it is time to start listening to teachers, respecting our profession, and giving control of our schools back to our local districts where it belongs.

So, teachers, just take a deep breath and carry on. Don't waste another second on teaching toward that test. The IAR that you are so worried about is just more educational flatulence, but your impact on the next generation will last long after the smell has wafted away.