Teacher Statements Regarding District-Mandated Testing
Teacher Testimonials on District Testing
1st grade teacher
Eugene District 4j
During the entire month of January last year, there was no time in my daily class scheduled to teach about Martin Luther King, Jr. Reading and Math testing and remediation is most of what I do every day. The testing data is of little use.
Nonetheless, I chose to teach about this important historic role model because my first grade students need and deserve to learn about Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement. I knew I would be in trouble with my principal if she came into my classroom and found me deviating from the assigned schedule, but I taught about MLK anyway.
3rd grade teacher
Eugene District 4j
Third grade is a magical year for students. It is the year that most transition from learning to read to reading to learn. A teacher’s job is to guide and support students as they become problem-solvers, develop communication skills through writing and verbal discourse, and questioners of the world around them.
Most standards talk about learning new skills with guidance and support. But during testing no guidance or support is allowed, and it undermines their building confidence and begins the start of test anxiety for a great number of students. I DO believe that it is important to assess student growth, but we currently over-test students, especially third-graders.
They are assessed at the end of units of study, progress is monitored three times a year with EasyCBM, and then asked to take a statewide assessment in the spring. In addition, these tests take away valuable learning time that students could use to continue building skills and confidence before moving on to the next grade level.
Trying to be succinct and not too emotional, I didn’t even mention the mass amount of tears shed by students yearly while taking the assessments.
Middle school teacher
Eugene District 4j
One of the most frustrating things about district testing is that the folks interpreting the data assume that it is representative of student ability (that it is reliable data). Something to consider in understanding whether this testing is producing reliable results: The vast majority of students are not trying very hard on the test.
Teenagers do not see standardized tests as having value, and frankly, they are sick of taking tests by the time they are in middle school. Standardized tests lack value and connection to students’ lives. so, they typically breeze through. Assessments need to be an extension of classroom work, like the work samples many districts were pioneering a number of years ago.
Teachers are capable of authentic and complex assessment without spending millions of dollars on private companies. Think of all the mental healthcare professionals we could employ to help kids with that money…that alone would increase learning outcomes by miles!
1st grade teacher (recently left the profession)
Eugene District 4j
As a first grade teacher, my day was segmented into required 15-minute teaching blocks, most of which were connected to the last district test or to the next one. In order to read out loud to my students (which they loved!), I had to “cheat” and hope I would not get caught by the principal. There was no time in the day for reading to my students. This is wrong.
6th grade teacher
Eugene District 4j
The test’s excerpted reading passage was about babies getting their first teeth. It referred to this as “breaking teeth”. My student had not heard that expression for teeth breaking through the gums and misunderstood it as the baby’s teeth getting broken. But the test of course was on-line multiple-choice with no answer making sense. And now the reading materials I have to use are using this same format. How does this help me better understand my student’s reading comprehension? It doesn’t. It just makes them feel dumb.
3rd grade teacher
Springfield School District
In Springfield Public Schools (SPS), there has been no district-wide K-12 instructional program for science, social studies, or art for years. For grades K-5, there is no ODE-approved curriculum for these subjects, and no approved science curriculum has been available since 2013.
At my school, no time is allocated for art, and only 75 to 150 minutes per week are provided for science, social studies, and health combined — thus, allowing only 15 to 30 minutes per week for each subject.
In contrast, students receive 550 to 700 minutes per week for Language Arts and 300 to 450 minutes per week for Math. Essentially, I am only provided with the time and curriculum to teach Reading and Math.
Middle school teacher
Beaverton School District
Under the warped influence of the testing regime, my school district decided to halve the amount of time for Language Arts and Social Studies for the past few years in order to boost scores in Science and Math on the OSAS. As a result, our students only received 36 minutes of instruction for ELA and Social Studies per day.
While our performance on these multiple choice tests went up in Science and Math, it was at tremendous cost: our students ability to think critically, analyze texts, write proficiently, and read literature suffered tremendously.
Why are we continuing to make this Faustian bargain with testing companies? They promise to boost scores on reductive and statistically unreliable tests they create and sell — at the cost of our students love of learning and teacher empowerment. Research continues to show that the greatest predictor for college success is teacher evaluations and grades, not standardized tests. Can we call that the science of learning?
Middle school teacher
Rural Lane County
My school day schedule has a total of 30 minutes maximum per day to teach Social Studies or Science or Health. That’s a total of 2.5 hours per week total for the three subjects. Most of the rest of the day is spent on Reading and Math. My schedule is closely monitored by the administration.
4th grade teacher
Springfield School District
I teach 4th grade in Springfield School Dist. This is my 30th year teaching.
In a discussion with my class, it stunned me to realize that my 4th graders could not conceptualize having ancestors from a hundred years ago. Further, they struggled with conceptualizing a historical timeline of 200 years.
The reality is that I don’t teach Social Studies to these students because my school’s daily schedule offers 20 minutes a week for Writing, Health, Science, or Social Studies. This is obviously impossible to do, so my students do not get instruction in Social Studies – no History, no Civics, no Geography – unless I cheat on the daily schedule and squeeze them in.
When I do squeeze in Geography, and we work on maps, they absolutely love it – the hands-on activity of map coloring and labeling is thrilling and meaningful to these ten- year-olds. But It doesn’t happen often enough. And our ELL students leave during this time and thus, do not get any SS, Science, or Health during that block of time.
The reason for this imbalance is the over-emphasis on Reading and Math, which while very important to any education, causes the testing, testing, testing on these subjects which drains time and interest away from the other important subjects. As a teacher, I want my students to get a well-rounded education.
Middle school teacher
Eugene District 4j
I still dislike EasyCBM. I don’t use it to inform my practice in any meaningful way.
3rd grade teacher
Eugene District 4j
We give easyCBM vocabulary, proficient Reading and Math tests (Fall, Winter, Spring) in addition to the state-mandated OSAS summative tests in April and May. At third grade, we spend a total of about five half-hour sessions preparing kids for the tests. Those sessions are primarily about testing protocols and formats.
All staff generally recognize shortcomings in easyCBM tests and are no longer surprised by erratic scores. The assessments don’t provide me with new information to inform teaching. My own classroom assessments seem more accurate, and we calibrate those within our three third grade classes at the school.
The district easyCBM tests are somewhat stressful for about half of the students. We skip easyCBM testing or assign a different grade level to some students for whom it is too difficult (i.e. – they can’t read a sentence, let alone the reading passage.) Sometimes they have an IEP specifying this and, occasionally, they are too new to the district or have too low of attendance to qualify for SPED testing.
The challenging language, content and the lack of teacher help is hard for a number of students. I think many of them begin to develop a coping mechanism of checking out and not caring about the tests and, sometimes, their own academic success.
I try to keep it light and encourage students that tests don’t define who they are. Still, the serious nature of the protocols and stilted scripts of testing cultivate a sense of anxiety among most students that my positive words do little to ease.