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My daughter just had a fabulous first-year
teacher who was energetic, thorough, and held my daughter to high standards.
I hope my next child is lucky enough to have this teacher when she gets to
third grade. My daughter's SOL test results came in the mail today. Our bright, hard-working, enthusiastic learner didn't do very well on her tests. Oh, she passed (all our kids are "passers"). She's our fourth child and I know she handles school tasks as fluently as her three brothers before her. Yet her brothers all scored high in the advanced category in math and reading. My daughter just crossed the magic pass line. Passed but only just. Nothing like her brothers. I was surprised. For just a minute, I was concerned. Then I thought about our daughter, her mostly "A" report cards, the work that I saw her bring home and watched her do. I thought about the books she reads, the educational software she masters, and the teacher conferences I have had with her teacher and I quickly realized that the snapshot the SOL test brought us in the mail is not an accurate picture of my daughter's skills. I have more than "A"s on her report card and her work to look at. Her Stanford 9 scores show a 91st percentile on reading and a 97th percentile on math. I look at her Otis Lennon School Ability Test scores and see her scores centered at the 98th percentile. My daughter is doing fine; the SOL test results simply get it wrong. Thank goodness I am test savvy enough not to put more credence in what came on her score report. But curiosity about why her scores were as low as they were drove me further. I went to the released 2000 and 2001 SOL math tests, focusing on "Measurement and Geometry" and "Patterns, Functions, and Algebra," her supposedly weakest areas. There are 12 "Measurement and Geometry" questions on the fifty item third grade SOL math test and 7 "Patterns, Functions, and Algebra" questions. While her siblings went swimming, she happily stayed home with me to answer those 19 questions while I watched (I said she was enthusiastic, didn't I?). I started with the 2000 released third grade math tests. I watched her answer the 19 questions. She very easily answered each question. After each question, I would stop her and demand to know why she picked the answer she did. Her explanations were good. So, 19 out of 19 on the 2000 released test sections. The test results I received said that she only got 10 out of the 19 right. Hmm. I pulled out the same two sections of the 2001 tests and asked her to do those too. Again, she easily got all 19 right. So 19 out of 19 on the 2000 tests; 19 out of 19 on the 2001 tests. What happened that one day in May when she sat down with the fifty multiple-choice math items? Was she too anxious to think straight? Did she misread the questions? Was her breakfast not filling enough? Was the pep rally she missed the missing link? Was she rushing to finish so she could read the book she brought to school that day? Was there noise in the classroom that distracted her? Was her test scored wrong? In her files, her scores will tell the story of a child who hasn't learned patterns, measurement, or problem solving. Those scores don't just miss the important details about my daughter's learning - the scores just plain get the story wrong. I hope next year's teachers are test-literate. I hope they look at all the evidence before jumping to any conclusions. When the state says these tests are "better than nothing," I will hold up my daughter's story. I will replace the wrong story the SOL test scores told about my daughter with a whole photo album of how she is truly doing. I need the whole story to be sure my daughter is learning. Sitting with my daughter at the table, concentrating on the 19 test items first on the 2000 released tests and then on the 2001 released tests, I made a startling observation. First, as the state admits, the SOL tests don't cover all the Standards. The entire 3rd grade SOL math test consists of 50 multiple-choice questions. The "Measurement and Geometry" and "Patterns, Functions, and Algebra" sections list 35 items that kids need to know and be able to do by the end of third grade. There are only 19 questions to cover those 35 items. Twenty-three of the standards aren't covered by a single question. Each question, according to figures given by the Department of Education, costs the state $12,500. Don't assume that each year, as the millions spent on questions continues to rise, we get new and unique questions. You would be wrong. The state scoffs at the our concerns about teaching to the tests, saying teachers won't know what is on the test so they can't narrow their instructional focus to just what is on the test. Only if they knew what would be on the test would be possible to narrow instruction, classroom assessment, and practice tests to just what will be on the high stakes test. The SOL questions on these two math sections look almost exactly alike from one year to the next. The numbers are changed, the cubes are rearranged, the missing puzzle piece changes shapes….but the format and type of questions are almost identical. There is the question that asks my daughter to tell how long an object is by counting the objects below it. For example, she would have to describe the length of a bench by counting the cookies below the bench. Substitute a bear for the bench and pennies for the cookies and make the $12,500 check payable to Harcourt. There is a question that asks my daughter to measure a shape with a centimeter ruler. Hey, if she can use a ruler to measure, why is she also using cookies or beans or pennies? There is a question asking my daughter to count number of (three-dimensional) cubes in the line drawing. Careful, don't let the line drawing fool you. There is a question about which item is most likely to weigh a certain number of pounds. Different items, different weight but same basic question. And if the cat is fat, says my daughter, it won't really weigh five pounds (okay, the cat is now on a diet as he weighs 12 pounds easy). There is an abstract pattern; pick the next section of the pattern. Pick the closest temperature on a thermometer. Get the picture? Of the 19 questions on the two tests, at least 16 questions were incredibly similar. The names and details were changed to protect the reuse of the question. What a deal for Harcourt (the company that makes the questions for millions of dollars each year). What an easy target for test prep companies to create "practice" tests. Of course, teaching to the test is happening. The state continues to insist these tests are diagnostic. What a joke on us. I have my daughter's test scores. The score says she is not a strong math student. Is that what the state means by diagnosis? The scores are wrong. The diagnosis is wrong. My daughter is doing just fine. It's the state accountability system that needs a diagnosis. Let Dr. Mom prescribe less reliance on the scores, more reliance on multiple measures. My child is more than a test score. Especially this test score. Mickey VanDerwerker |
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