I knew I wanted to be a teacher when I was 14. I love children, and I love education. I love a country that offers free public education, and I believe everyone has a responsibility to support quality public education for every child. My specialty is languages, particularly Spanish and ESL; I have taught learners from 2-year-old preschool up through AP classes to seniors and even the college level. This is my wheelhouse, and right now in Kentucky, particularly in Jefferson County, we need change.
It’s no secret that one change I am advocating for is to pass Amendment 2, to allow the legislature to craft good school choice legislation, perhaps even as specific as to put a gap-busting charter school in the 40211 zip code. My fellow advocates and I often use the testing data from JCPS to show how stymied we are that it can cost $25,000 of taxpayer money per student for a school like Maupin Elementary to fail to teach 95% of its (mostly poor Black) kids to read on level. Indeed, across 92 elementary schools, Jefferson County’s proficient/distinguished rate is an average of 36% – barely one third.
My children, like many children in District 41, do not attend JCPS schools. I’m thankful for all the efforts of excellent teachers they had at Hawthorne Elementary for the two years we were there, but in July 2020, when the school board continued to balk at any attempt to get children back in the classroom in person, we withdrew, and barring significant change, we will not be back. One of the biggest problems we had with the system was how many days of his kindergarten year they had our son on computer-adaptive testing so they could compare him to every other kindergarten learner in the district– boys, girls, older, younger, all of them. Those were days they could have been helping him learn to read, and helping us identify his auditory memory disorder we didn’t get diagnosed until he was 11.
I use the proficiency testing rates to try to evaluate my school options, but don’t think that means I am a fan of standardized testing. I’m certainly not. One of the reasons we moved our son to the school where he is now is that they do not test. Like, ever, in elementary school at least. And many professionals are with me, including school board members I don’t always agree with, and authors like Alfie Kohn, whom I love to read but on some issues, we are on totally different pages. On the issue of testing, we are pretty much on the same page. Specifically, these tests…
- discourage our kids
- waste instructional time
- were not developed to measure learning
- encourage superficial thinking
- have little to do with the quality of instruction
- and hurt our most vulnerable learners the worst.
As Kohn says, these tests are “a force of politics-and political decisions can be questioned, challenged, and ultimately reversed.” I intend to do just that.
Prior to third grade, children in JCPS take the MAP test. It is billed as a test that is not standardized, but parents still receive a report comparing their child to other children in the school and district at tender ages with wild variations in developmental progress.
It’s absurd to put 5-year-old children in front of computer adaptive testing for hours. When my son was subjected to the MAP testing, it only told us what we all already knew: that he struggled with a computer, that he struggled with school-based learning. It was a soul-sucking running commentary of “significantly below grade level” and “needs improvement.” For my daughter, it told us what we all already knew: that she loved checking boxes and knew how school “worked,” and knew that going slowly on the tests got you out of other activities you didn’t want to participate in.
I would love to see no testing for kindergarten or first-grade learners except by special request from a parent or teacher, but that’s a drastic change I don’t believe the system will make. So, I will keep pushing for parent opt-out of testing, especially at the lower levels. It is a colossal waste of time and resources when spent on the children who don’t need it, with parents who don’t want it.
Opting out is not radical, not partisan, not shocking. These are the states that allow some level of opt-out where testing is concerned:
- Alaska
- California
- Colorado
- Idaho
- North Dakota
- Minnesota
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Utah
- Wisconsin
Of course, change is hard, and school districts fight it was much as anyone. Questions arise:
What about federal funding? The concern among legislators and districts is “Oh, no, we can’t do that, because federal funding is tied to test results.” This fear is unfounded, because that has never happened. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) authorizes states to allow opting out of testing, and it’s time for Kentucky to take that action.
How will we get data? Just because you allow opt-out doesn’t mean you won’t get the data. Most parents want to see numbers on paper so they can tell themselves they’re getting information beyond how good their child is at taking a test. I get it. I probably would only opt out for one of my three children. Most parents will decide to do the tests anyway. But they know their children best; don’t they deserve to opt them out of a test that they know will adversely affect their child, their family, and perhaps even the system itself?
