CHARLOTTE -- Here in Charlotte, spring brought an outbreak of standardized tests. Like parents at the rest of North Carolina public schools, we've grown accustomed to state EOGs and EOCs. But in Charlotte, we're taking standardized testing to a new level.
In March, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools rolled out 52 new tests, a first step toward our Broad Foundation-trained superintendent's grand goal of having a standardized test for every student in every subject, from kindergarten through 12th grade.
In addition to state tests in math, reading and science, we'll have tests for elementary art, music and P.E., for middle school band, orchestra and chorus, and for every other class at every grade level.
Why should you care about CMS's testing boom? Because we're the wave of the future. Despite strong objections from many Mecklenburg County parents, and despite a divided Mecklenburg County delegation, the state House of Representatives passed HB 546, a bill that gives CMS a blank check to use expanded testing in a new pay-for-performance plan for teachers. The bill is now in the Senate.
If legislators think it's all right to impose this testing on Charlotte, they probably think it's all right to impose it elsewhere, too.
The new tests brought learning to a halt in many classes as staff scrambled to administer the "field test" phase of this process. Elementary schools were especially hard hit, as the new testing regime required that every child in kindergarten, first and second grade be given a one-on-one test that lasted about an hour. This meant that testing a class of 25 children required a full 25 hours of staff time (in the next round of testing, each of these students is scheduled to spend another hour taking four 15-minute tests).
Art teachers, music teachers, technology teachers, ESL teachers and EC teachers all stopped what they were doing in order to administer these tests. Meanwhile, many classes were supervised by assistants or babysat by DVDs.
Some parents refused to allow their children to take the field tests. When our group, Mecklenburg ACTS, launched a petition challenging the tests, we quickly garnered more than 2,000 signatures.
But these tests have powerful supporters. They are driven by the latest in a long line of educational fads: the idea that the best way to improve education is to judge teachers by student "performance." Wealthy private groups such as the Gates and Broad foundations promote this idea. Legislators in Florida and Tennessee have made it mandatory in their states. It also formed a key part of the federal Race to the Top program.
Race to the Top regulations called for both teacher and principal effectiveness to be "evaluated, in significant part, by student growth." This growth, the regulations continued, should be measured by assessments that are "rigorous and comparable across classrooms."
Can anyone say "standardized tests"?
Words like student growth and teacher effectiveness sound great - until your child is sitting down in front of yet another bubble sheet and you realize that the yardstick for both growth and effectiveness is a multiple choice test that covers only a fraction of what you want your child to learn in school.
Supporters of this testing often protest that teachers will be evaluated by "multiple measures." But if student growth is a required part of every teacher's evaluation, it doesn't matter whether the test score portion of the evaluation makes up 10 percent or 90 percent or anything in between. To get those numbers, every child in every grade will have to take multiple standardized tests.
In Charlotte, this unhappy situation has been made worse by our superintendent's decision to use test scores as part of a pay-for-performance scheme, despite significant concerns about their reliability. Teacher pay would be determined, at least in part, by how one teacher's scores line up against another's. This isn't just an expansion of standardized testing, it's an expansion of high-stakes standardized testing.
Can anyone say "teaching to the test"?
This country has already seen the damage that high-stakes standardized tests can do. The focus on test scores in the No Child Left Behind legislation led to a narrowing of the curriculum, widespread teaching to the test, significant amounts of cheating and lower state standards around the country.
That legislation is now up for reauthorization. If the reauthorized bill mandates that all teachers be evaluated according to student growth, Charlotte-style testing will spread across the country. Test vendors will prosper; education will suffer.
We urge state senators to stop HB 546. And our congressional delegation should not include language in the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind that will require more testing.
We need to let legislators know the ugly, on-the-ground, bubble-test realities of lofty rhetoric about teacher effectiveness. We need to proclaim, as loudly as we can, that parents won't stand for it.
