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My wife teaches high school English and I know she'd quit tomorrow if we didn't need the paycheck. In her view, her ability to teach well has been dramatically impeded by testing. She is now getting 11th graders who have been convinced that learning is mostly about filling in the blanks and playing the testing game. What appears to have happened is that part of the bargain early on was "Let us impose these accountability measures but we promise we'll get you much better tests." That hasn't happened. In fact, costs have driven testing in the opposite direction. For example, writing used to be tested by having students actually write an extended piece. But those were too expensive to grade, so now the only way writing is assessed is at the level of "Where should the comma go."

I think you hit the nail on the head with this post. We want to be sure that every student is receiving a high quality education AND teachers need good data about what their students are achieving AND no one really wants kids to spend most of their time filling in bubbles.

So, the question is, how do we measure results and create an accountable system in a manner that teachers and students find meaningful and relevant?

August, I think you're right about the broken promise. It seems that a bargain was not upheld. The standards movement had a lot of promise, but lousy assessments became de facto standards. That's very unfortunate.

Aimee, I think you ask the right question. It certainly will not do simply to rail against testing. We need an accountability system. We need very good information on what our students are learning. We need to use that information to address their specific needs. That's not easy to do. But the stakes are awfully high. It worries me that people in schools who have very principled objections to current assessments are so often portrayed as people who do not want to be held accountable. There's something much bigger at stake here.

Testing is sucking the life out of teaching at every level.
At my school we are no longer teaching to the tests, we are now TESTING to the tests. My principal decided that the state mandated tests, district mandated tests, and text book unit tests were insufficient. Her solution was to mandate a bi-weekly grade level created test for language arts and another for mathematics.
As a kindergarten teacher, I was appalled to realize that my student portfolios showed one test for every three days of school.
This represents too much time taken from language development, building social skills, scientific exploration, building phonemic awareness, art, music, etc.
Good teachers are constantly assessing their students informally and holistically by observing and interacting with them. Formal assessments have their place, but that place needs to be prioritized below actual teaching and learning.

Wow, thanks for the thoughtful writing about my original blog post. I think you and Aimee are exactly right when you say that accountability isn't the problem, the idea that accountability can only be wrought of multiple standardized tests is.

I'm all about accountability. Clearly if our students are going to be well-served, we need to make sure 1) they have good teachers, and 2) their good teachers are helping them to learn important, useful things. The only way to do that is to have some form of check in about both how the students and the teachers are doing.

However, when we fail our students, I think, is when we decide that the only way to check in is by having students take the same high-stakes test, often many times a year, and then base all of our decisions on that test. In my ideal world, there'd be some kind of overall portrait or portfolio of students over the year that show their growth, areas in which they still struggle, areas they've mastered. Formal assessments like what we have now could be included in that, but they wouldn't be the whole picture. Of course, that's a lot more work than having them fill in bubbles, but that's the work that I think a good teacher should be doing. And it's the work that others in the educational field should be trusting good teachers to be doing.

Tests the way we have now seem to assume that teachers can't be trusted to determine if their students are achieving. Shouldn't we be trying to fix THAT problem instead of taking away even more valuable instructional time with another round of multiple choice?

Perhaps it's me, but I suspect a much more effective system of accountability would be to ask a simple set of questions:

What are the students actually doing in a class? What types of projects, activities, discussions and learning opportunities are they exposed to? What is the sense that one takes away from observing/visiting that student are actively engaged in the learning process?

Questions such as those above do not lend themselves to "data" driven analysis, but they tell enormous amounts about what students have the opportunity to learn in a teacher's class. Far more than any test that a student can take. And then we can rely on the NAEP to tell us how students are scoring when it comes to genuine learning, a test which Diane Ravitch points to as the "gold standard" because it is random, low or no stakes, and not one teacher "prepares" their students for it.

The current testing regimen will never yield legitimate results. And that will be borne out by the fact that it will raise neither the NAEP nor the International Scores.

We need to welcome thinking and learning back into the classroom. And the only way to do that is to take a step back and ask ourselves what the goal of learning was to begin with. And if we find that it was to build a better way of thinking, and to engage students in the process of becoming lifelong learners, then the pathway is clear.

Eliminate the massive waste that these tests represent.

Alternatively, if we believe that our kids will be best able to compete against kids from an array of nations who currently encourage critical thinking skills in a world with many variables; each with their own set of unpredictable dynamics by "succeeding" as a child on a multiple choice examination, then I suggest we continue on the course we have chosen.

But we had better be prepared to change course. Because I don't believe that anyone actually does. Currently, it is quite en vogue to believe they do. But what is en vogue and what is the truth are often two very different things.

Ironically, the types of teachers Gates and others refer to as being the best of their youth are precisely who this regimen of testing is going to eliminate from the professional pool. And that's a shame.

If I had to guess, we are living through our very own version of "Tulip Mania". So we'll call it "EduMania" or "TestMania"....

Let's hope we don't lose our shirt in the process.

Kinder Teacher--a test every days for Kindergartners? That seems pretty steep--depending of course on the nature of the test. How are the children taking it?

Stasia--thanks to you for such an insightful and compelling blog posting. I think the portfolio idea is very compelling, as long as determine a strategy for ensuring that portfolios are held to consistent standards. There's a risk of standardization there, too, but I do worry about what happens when standards are applied inconsistently. I think some people at Ed Sector have begun to explore this issue in greater detail. Student work hardly gets mentioned in assessment discussions these days.

Ken--I agree that observations would be critical--and that they happen all too seldom. One of the reasons why I like Karen Chenoweth's books is that they present rich accounts of what high-scoring schools have been doing to achieve their success on standardized tests. The tests themselves don't tell me everything I need to know about those schools, but her observations of practice and student work offer a much richer picture. Would that that level of observation were available everywhere.

I've gotta say this article really hit home for me. Testing did drive me out of teaching.

I worked in an inclusion class in an inner city school in Brooklyn in which most of the kids came from the housing projects that surrounded it.

These kids needed school for more than just academics. It was a sanctuary. It was where they could get away from the violence. It was where they could get something to eat. It was a place where they could let down their guard a little and just be kids.

One of my main goals was to cultivate their sense of enjoyment in learning. Over the years, I built up the class library with books that they would enjoy reading. I challenged them with math games. I introduced them to art, science, culture, music and theater. I even cooked with them.

I really felt that it if I could get my kids interested in school, they would eventually run with it, and use it to escape some of the nightmare situations which they encountered.

I started there in 2002 and every year the testing madness progressively worsened.

In my last year our new principal implemented the most awful test prep regimen. 6 weeks before the ELA test, it was all ELA test prep all day. There was absolutely nothing else.

The AP would show up at our door every morning with a stack of previous state tests and worksheets that we had to drill our kids with for the day.

They administration didn't even give us the courtesy of handing us the material beforehand so we could prepare to present it in an interesting way.

It was so brutal. Everyone involved hated it. One day, my kids even held a strike because they were so sick of ELA. They wanted to do something else like science, social studies or art. So for a day we broke the monotony.

Of course, when the ELA test was over, we started the grueling 6 week test prep for the Math test.

We were losing some of the kids. They were zoning out, school-wide behavior issues were growing. Many teachers were feeling the same way as me, so I brought up my concerns with the administration numerous times. The principal just wasn't hearing it. In a meeting she basically yelled at me saying she was "the educational leader of this school". So that was that.

Our previously good working relationship had basically degraded. She know longer acknowledged me in the halls. My access to her was cut off.

Of course, the scores came in and they were better. I had drilled those kids until they could pass the test with little difficulty. However, I know my students did not really learn as much as they could.

There were fewer students who told me about an exciting book they were reading. There were less kids playing the math games I taught them. There was no art or science fair or annual performance that year. They were mostly waiting for summer, me included.

First, the current mess kills the spirit to continue learning after students leave the building behind. If nothing else, it is a failure for that. Beneath all the woes of the general education classroom is the near eradication of music, art, and the trades. Perhaps you recall the art of "Debate?" I imagine the Viet Nam war may be credited for its demise in some state ed. back office. Nor, is it missed in the District of Columbia.

As a music teacher, I required my gentlemen students to escort my lady students to and from class the last seven weeks of the school year to study and practice ballroom dance. The "Spring Ball" was voluntary and it was packed. Not relevant enough to keep. Administration cut music class time in half to once a week. Dance died. The school lost its "Balls." Bell Choir was another pet project gone with the time cut. Music reading in general music class, impossible. All gone but for the lack of a second class in the week.

Why?! With a few million dollars from the "NO politician, (er uhm, pardon me,) Child Left Behind Initiative" dangling before them, they simply could not afford to ignore such an opportunity. (In the end every district hired more people and raised salaries. How's it working out?) Our school district has an extremely expensive elementary "one room styled school house which only values the three "R's," Math, Science and Reading.

Ultimate success will require a shift in social consciousness, not just a change in curriculum or testing. Not only do we need the teachers you richly describe above- "UNTIED," we need students and parents to demand a rich, cultural, technological, and artistic education. You want a test for that? The day a classroom full of students is openly hostile towards a classmate who interrupts the flow because of their cell phone or "I-Whatever Pod" is the day you have passed the test. The public school diploma ought to require a curriculum equally enriched and valuable for tradesman, and artists. In other words, those human beings who, from Kindergarten refuse to grow up and become a white collar automaton. (Note Germany, the third largest economy in the world. They educate future workers for all levels of their society.)

The simpler solutions- time away from classes- Move to "AFTER" school- all social workers, counselors, Sunday school on Tuesday afternoon (what a church marketing tactic!) physicals, assemblies to promote fundraisers, "Take Your Child to Work" day!, and dare I say it? maybe even band lessons. Yes the day will look different. These folks would sleep in but work until 5:00.

Oh, another big one- real food at school requires more tools in the kitchen than a box cutter and a can opener. Nothing says "CHALLENGE" to a teacher more than a 10:30 a.m. class turning ugly from the sugar blues.

This battle over education is not new. Many revolutionary teachers have come and gone (steam-rolled by their districts.) A classic was Albert Cullum. Google his story, "A Touch of Greatness" and you will have the cure for our educational illness.

From a critic @ Netflix:

"Touch of Greatness is a wonderful documentary that shows how much love some teachers have for their craft. Greatness tells the story of Albert Cullum, a teacher who bucked traditional learning initiatives of the time and instead used his own method of hands-on teaching. Cullum also applied the idea of making learning fun which seems sort of basic today but it was quite revolutionary in 40's-50's. Cullum also held his students to a much more rigorous schedule than we do today. Cullum introduced fourth and fifth and even some kindergarteners to the works of Sophocles, Shakespeare and Shaw. He felt that children would rise to the challenge. He was right."

I have a question- How did we go from "Head Start" to "No child Left Behind?"

Forcing teachers to 'teach to the test' is a sure way to discourage the best and the brightest from instituting those innovative teaching methods which we all laud so highly. You've never seen a heartwarming movie about a teacher who struggled with their students to make sure they regurgitated facts by rote with a lack of understanding and there's a good reason for that.

Testing is one of the core reasons I started my business in Brooklyn, NY. Brainy Academy is a tutoring and enrichment center in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.

Testing is killing school curriculums, and preventing teachers from wanting to teach. Our children are suffering because of it. I wanted to have a tutoring center in Brooklyn that would use an advanced curriculum, one that would promote logical thinking, reasoning, and excellent learning skills in children. To put children ahead in their classes, we use the Singapore Math Method, which promotes problem solving skills.

For little ones, we offer Brooklyn Montessori classes for ages 3-6. Studies show that Montessori programs help children become more cognitively able, along with helping motor skills.

Check us out at www.brainyacademyny.com.