N is for Not a Good Sign

I was reading the examiner's manual to my testing group this morning, a task I have completed countless times over the last 30+ years. As I started, I thought back to the first time I ever got to use my most official-sounding voice to read directions that I had heard dozens of times myself when I was a student. Today you will take a test... The words were a thrilling confirmation that I had made it to the other side of the big desk and was actually a teacher. 

What I wasn't aware of then was how onerous such tests can be for so many students. As a good test-taker myself, I was oblivious to the stamina and engagement it took for some to complete what I always enjoyed as a way to show off my aptitude and learning. It didn't take long for me to observe how unpleasant these sessions could be for some kids, but like so many in my profession, I considered them necessary, if disagreeable.

In the decades since, the powers that be, both local, state, and national have piled on more and more standardized tests and raised the stakes on them for students, teachers, and school districts. In 2023, testing was a 37-billion-dollar industry. We pay for the tests, we pay for the data, we pay for tests that predict the test results, we pay for programs that remediate predicted deficits.

In the same decades, my experience and observations have convinced me that there is an over-emphasis on these 'snap-shots" of temporal data. The exams don't really tell us much we don't already know. Still, in this data-driven world, mine is a minority opinion. (Although I am joined by many other student-facing professionals.)

And so this morning I stood in a room of 14 sixth-graders, all with test-taking challenges. Oh, they were as ready and willing as possible to sit still for 3 hours; they have been reared to this ritual since kindergarten. I read from my examiner's manual and watched as they logged in and tapped their way to the sample question screen, which gave them a simple passage and easy questions to practice using the test's functions. 

Scanning the room I saw that half of them had selected the wrong answer for the first two samples. I sighed and kept reading.

Life Lesson: Sign, sign, everywhere a sign, blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind. Do this, don't do that. Can't you read the sign? ~Five Man Electrical Band "Signs"