Re-visioning Assessment

The readings for week four are focused on the issue of assessment. Some people run for cover when confronted with assessment. Surely, since 2002 when NCLB was enacted, assessment has taken on a connotation as a killjoy.

In 2001, the NYCDoE completed a report titled An Examination of the Relationship between Higher Standards and Students Dropping Out that warned that at-risk students, particularly English Language Learners were made vulnerable by current testing policies.

"Research has consistently shown that increasing standards has an impact on the high school completion rates of the most at-risk student…if interventions are not consistently carried out for at-risk students, then students who are not able to keep up tend to give up and become drop-outs" (2001, p. 5.)

The report also acknowledges,

"While it is too soon to conclusively attribute the observed increase in drop out rate over the past three years to the higher grade promotion standards being imposed in New York City and the higher graduation standards being phased in by New York State, this trend is consistent with previous research showing a relationship between higher standards and lower school completion rates"(2001, p. 1).

Yet ten years later, the policies haven't changed.

In my own research with young people about the effects of high stakes testing on their schooling, youth told my co-researchers and me that the "test obsession" made their actual classes dreadfully unappealing. Benji told us, "If I saw one more bubble sheet I was going to go crazy." In his interview, he expressed a sense of loss and frustration for what his high school classes could have been,

"Now looking back at what my classes were like I feel angry that I didn't have the time to learn things that are important to me. It was always 'Pack it in, pack it in, pack it in, move on to the next things because it's gonna be on the test.' There would be things that caught my eye, that sparked my mind, but it would be like, 'No, keep it moving to the next lesson.'"

Renata, a high school teacher, left her teaching position in the NYCDoE in 2003, in large part because of the weight of testing on her curriculum and pedagogy.

Every day for about a month my ' do now' said 'Get ready to get ready for the test!!!' And I would, like, add exclamation points to it like it wasn't a travesty. It got to the point where I was feeling embarrassed… When a student asks you 'Why do we need to know this?' I feel like a good teacher should have a good answer. To say 'Because it's on the test' is disrespectful to them in all sorts of ways… I was very depressed, I barely made it through that semester… Then all summer I felt so-< /span> heavy about going back… In the end, I just couldn't go back.

Renata's observations of the pedagogical and ethical conflicts that arise in test-based curricula were echoed from the students' points of view in our interviews and focus groups. Young people often expressed feelings of resentment for teachers in standardized test-based courses for being "hypocritical." In one focus group, youth scoffed at teachers who said that the tests don't matter. "They said they don't matter but they did. [Otherwise] why is she putting so much pressure on it?"Later in the discussion, Yeo said, "I had a teacher who was always talking about loving learning. Asking us if we loved our learning today. I'm thinking, ' Are you so crazy you're loving this?'"

Beyond these ironies, the biggest irony of all- that tests don't even accurately or comprehensively measure student learning- is best captured by Willis: "Tests are unnecessary for being able to show that you put in effort, show that you care, that you pay attention; what's the point of having a test if it can't tell you these things?"

In 2001, the Rockefeller foundation hosted a group of educational experts to form a panel that would review the Regents exams. The panel found that the exams do not meet stated NYSED standards, that passing English Language Arts (ELA) and Global Studies exams does not indicate readiness for college, and that the ELA consistently "sanitizes" literature excerpts on the exam (Regents exam review panel report, 2001). In total, five such panels have convened, and their assessment of these assessments are consistent: these tests do not purport to do what they say they do, and they are often poorly and inaccurately constructed (performanceassessment.org/consequences/index).

In their critical analysis (2008) of the No Child Left Behind Act, Michael Rebell and Jessica Wolff describe the ways in which NCLB has contributed to a shift in the purpose of schooling, away from teaching and learning toward assessment. In part, this is because although the drafters of the act recognized two significant needs in the nation's education landscape, opportunity and proficiency, they drafted the act to respond only to proficiency.

…(P)oor and minority students, whose readiness for learning is severely affected by conditions of poverty, are nevertheless more likely than their more affluent White peers to attend lower-quality schools− however school quality is measured− and to lack adequate educational resources to meet their learning needs. NCLB does not speak directly to this central issue (Rebell and Wolff, 2008).

This mandate has exponentially raised the stakes for schools, as private firms and companies willing to step in and take over failing schools wait in the wings, licking their chops. If the proficiency for all target were merely a motivational goal, this might be an innocuous stand. But since thousands of schools around the country are being labeled "in need of improvement"- which the public reads as "failing"- because they have proved incapable of making sufficient progress toward an unempirical goal, this aspect of the law is causing considerable harm… This situation will become increasingly unworkable as we approach 2014. By that year, almost all schools in the nation will fall short of the AYP targets and are likely to be on the "needs improvement" list. (Rebell and Wolff, 2008, p. 5; Linn, 2004).

Further, in a recent audit conducted by the Fordham Foundation, only five states have tests that are in "solid" alignment with their state standards. New York State was determined to have a "fair" and "fair, borderline poor" alignment between tests and standards in Elementary, Middle, and Secondary Math, and Secondary Reading, and determined the state to have a "poor" alignment between tests and standards in Elementary and Middle Reading (Cross, Rebarber, & Torres, 2004). "Given the lack of alignment of many state tests with state content standards, a serious question arises as to whether many of the tests are, in fact, valid for the extensive purposes for which they are being used." (Rebell and Wolff, 2008, p. 120).

Standardized test based curricula, and the pressure on all parties for high scores combine to dissuade students from schooling. More compelling reasons for curricular lessons and high achievement need to be identified in order to counteract this trend.

It is within this context that I chose the readings for this week. Some of you made connections between Baker's trilingualism and acts of code-switching, and Lisa Delpit's chapter, No Kinda Sense, explores the role of code-switching in student success. In my view, the most valuable element of code-switching is that the code user is informed about contexts enough to make wise choices about appropriate and powerful code-usage. This is a crucial component of what we will later describe as critical literacy. Note also Delpit's instructive example of the hair braiding unit.

Delpit's chapter pairs harmoniously with Hilliard's chapter on Language, Culture, and the Assessment of African American Children. Though specifically discussing African American youth, Hilliard's argument can be extended to other groups outside the culture of power. You will see that Hillard's work echoes other authors we have read so far, but its value is in bringing all of the bitty pieces together in one narrative.

The true gems of this week are found in Luna and Carini. Luna tells us that, "academic literacy has historically been conflated with literacy in general" (596). Further, "(T)reatment of difference as deficit has resulted in the location of the problem of school failure in individuals and in the continued positioning of nonmainstream students as outsiders" (597).

Luna's insistence that, "(T)he implications of being "a culture in the grips of deficit thinking" (Hull, Rose, Fraser, & Castellano, 1991, p. 324) would seem to include limiting the diversity of abilities and backgrounds of high school and college graduate, thus constraining our societal vision and potential," (Luna, 597) is a complimentary angle to our discussions thus far.

Luna's definition of learning disabilities gives our conversation another kind of traction: "I use the term learning disabilities to refer to a socially constructed category indicating mismatches between diverse learners' abilities and specific academic demands" (Luna, 597).

Finally, Carini provides a counter-approach to mainstream approaches to assessment. I've gotta say it, this is an essay that I just plain love. Carini's emphasis is on close description, on looking at a student, at her work, at her thinking. It is so different than what operates as evaluation these days that you might feel like swatting Carini away as a pest, but de-link your thinking from the over-determined realities of contemporary assessment, and give her ideas some thought.

Carini's work exposes the true anxiety at work in all of this "test obsession." That is, after all these years of common schooling, we still have no real way of knowing if students are learning . Pause and consider what I am suggesting here.

The bonus reading from Week Two by Lomawaima and McCarty provide insight to ways that Indigenous peoples know their youth are learning. Carini provides another strategy.

I look forward to reading your posts this week, and to our live chat on Monday June 20 at 7. We'll take a closer look at Carini's work then.

Here is an interview with Carini about her the Prospect School. In the years since the publication of her chapter, the Prospect School was closed and reorganized as Carini's current education project, the Prospect Center.
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3746079

Finally, this week, we read Luna's definition of learning disabled, a "socially constructed category indicating mismatches between diverse learners' abilities and specific academic demands" (Luna, 597).

The notion of match or mis-match is crucial to our work in this course; not just a mis-match between abilities and demands, but also cultural mis-match, mis-matches in values and expectations, and epistemological mis-matches.

Appreciating the experiences of under-performing students as potentially experiences of mis-match can help us to shift the blame of failure off of students' bodies, and their families, and onto the mis-match itself. Who is responsible for softening the sharp edges of mis-match? Who has the power to be responsible?

Take some time to view Ken Robinson's TED talk on how schools "kill creativity." His short thesis adds another dimension to our discussions of the implications of 'test obsession.' Please weave your response to Robinson's talk into your discussion board posts and responses.