There is already a strong
backlash against politicians and school administrators because of
high-stakes standardized tests, and the way results are used to justify
school closures. Some parents and educators have encouraged families to “opt out” of
tests, such as those related to the Common Core State
Standards, as a way to protest these practices and the effects they are having on children,
families and communities. However, Yong Zhao, education professor at the
University of Oregon, recommends that parents, educators and policy makers go a
step further, and use the moment to re-examine the role of testing—and the
issue of accountability—more broadly.
Tests
are just one form of assessment, he points out, and limited in what they
can accurately measure. Important qualities such as creativity,
persistence and collaboration, for example, are tricky to measure because
they are individualized and situation- or task-specific (someone may
collaborate well in one group setting but not in another). And no test can
measure whether children are receiving “a quality learning experience that meets the needs of individual
students.”High-stakes tests concern Zhao the most, because he says
they represent more than misspent time and money. He faults them for
suppressing creativity and innovation, and creating narrowed educational
experiences, because everything that is not measured becomes secondary or
is dismissed entirely. Moreover, “constant ranking and sorting” creates stress and
makes students less confident.
By contrast, feedback that avoids
needless comparisons among students can be very useful, and doesn’t require
much time or money. When it’s clear which skills and content need to be
mastered (such as the ability to conjugate verbs in order to become proficient
in a foreign language), low-stakes tests can help learners direct their
attention to filling in the gaps in their knowledge. More helpful still are
explicit written assessments that describe an individual’s progress. The key to
good assessment, says Zhao, is to ask: “Whose purpose does this serve? Is the
learner trying to get better using assessment, … rather than just using it to
judge?”
Parents
seeking assurance that their children are learning can look at their children’s engagement
level, and notice if they’re exploring topics or pursuits that interest them,
and improving in their areas of interest.
Steps for Identifying Needs
As
for how to evaluate schools, he recommends that parents and community members
ponder some key questions. “First of all, ask if the school is really
personalizing learning to meet individual needs, with a broad and flexible
curriculum,” he says. Children interested in music, for example, should
have equal opportunities to develop that skill as to develop literacy.The
next question he would ask: “Is school an engaging place—do students want
to go to school? If the more they go to school, the more they hate it,
that would be a horrible place,” he says. Analogies with taking bad-tasting
medicine fail, he adds, because there’s no disease involved, and “children
don’t need to be fixed.”
And
finally, “Do the teachers care about the development of the whole child?” he
asks. “If a teacher just helped a student who had lost hope because of a
personal problem, that should count for something. Teachers should be
human mentors. Children can take ownership of their learning, but
inevitably they will encounter setbacks. Do teachers help develop their
social, emotional and physical well being, and challenge them and push
them forward?” On a broader societal level, educational equity can be gauged by
whether schools in low-income jurisdictions receive comparable resources
to invest in good teachers, professional development, materials, facilities,
field trips and other enrichment activities.
Who Should be Accountable for What?
Teaching
can be mandated, but learning can’t, Zhao points out; what adults can do is provide
opportunities and offer guidance when needed. That’s what we should be tracking,
he says—“accountability should shift back to what we do for kids, rather
than what they’ve done for us.”In other words, each person should be held
accountable only for what he or she can control—the educators for
providing an environment that stimulates and supports individual learning,
and the community and government for providing sufficient funding to
enable them to carry this out equitably.
Even
if funding levels are modest (in the first article in this series, Zhao
explained how quality can
be achieved economically), the best way to ensure that the funds
are well spent is to have greater local autonomy. “Locally controlled
entities are much closer to their constituents,” Zhao says, and more
responsive to pressure to cater to their needs. Those most invested in the
schools’ learning environments—the children and their parents—then
wouldn’t have to work as hard to get their schools to change direction.
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