What's up with Whatsit

Standardized Tests

Believing we can improve schooling with more tests is like believing you can make yourself grow taller by measuring your height.
~Robert Schaeffer of FairTest


Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.
~ Albert Einstein

The elementary school where I work is doing standardized testing this week. Actually, this is a district-wide test. We have 8 high schools, 12 middle schools, 39 elementary schools, and all of them are taking nine-weeks tests. We just had midterms in February. We do this every nine weeks - take midterms halfway through and then nine-weeks tests at the end of the term. That's a standardized district-developed test about every four weeks. As the librarian, I don't have to stress over the test as the classroom teachers do, even though I teach what I know will probably be on the test, which for me is Reference Skills: atlas, almanac, dictionary and encyclopedia, as well as Parts of the Book: mainly Table of Contents and Index. However, I hear the classroom teachers talk about te fact that only four weeks in between standardized tests does not allow time for their children to learn the material well enough to be confident on passing the test. Also, they have to give classroom tests, which takes up even more time from classroom instruction.

Usually I help the Special Education teacher test. She has one child who must have the test read to him. He can read, but for some reason it is part of the plan for any standardized test to be read to him. Therefore I get fairly familiar with what is on the test. Yesterday the test had questions on changing simple sentences into complex sentences with appositive phrases on it. Also, lots of prepositional phrase questions. I remember doing all this in the seventh grade. This was a fourth-grade test.

When they added Kindergarten to free public school, what used to be First-grade work got moved back. Instead of getting the students ready for First Grade, they turned Kindergarten into First Grade. In addition, they added the amount of work that is required for each year, so that children today are learning things several years before I learned it. A fourth-grader's mind is not developed enough to do all this fancy grammatical work, such as prepositional phrases. They should still be on nouns and verbs: basic things.

We will have math today. I will see what is on the math test. I remember from previous years that there are several things on the test that I didn't see until junior high. One thing the tests tend to focus on are critical-thinking skills. You have a few elementary children who can think critically, but the brains of most children are not developed enough for it.

Another problem with standaradized testing is that the teachers are concentrating so hard on teaching what they know will be on there that they have to let other important skills go. The main one of these is cursive handwriting. We are having a whole generation of children who cannot do cursive handwriting due to it not being on the standardized testing. Also, in Mississippi anyway, for some reason (and I wish I knew the reason), History and Geography are not on the test. So guess what happens to them? I complained when they turned these two worthy subjects into Social Studies, but I would be happy to even have that.

I feel a little sorry for our children. They are being crammed full of knowledge they don't have the maturity to accept. When they leave school. they will be so glad to leave knowledge behind them that they will not be able to think of continuing it on their own as many people of my generation have done.