Gladly Would I Teach

Yesterday I spent all morning administering the PSAT to my 10th-grade homeroom. Since Georgia pays for tenth graders to take the test, my school decided to test all sophomores. Juniors who wanted to take the test, most of the junior class, had to pay for it. Just for good measure, all ninth graders took the PSAT as well. So, virtually the entire school shut down this morning to take the test.

My students were not happy about taking the test because they had taken it last year as freshmen and remember how painful the experience was. The test was so hard, and their scores were so low. Why would they want to take it again? Earlier in the week we discussed that the test was hard because it was really designed for juniors, and I did my best to encourage them to do their best and to just look at the test as a free practice exam in preparation for next year’s test. They listened politely and nodded their heads, signifying compliance.

Whereas the attendance of my homeroom students is usually outstanding, yesterday 5 of my 26 students did not come to school. I wasn’t surprised since a few had intimated that there was no reason to appear since they were not attending their regular classes. One student showed up an hour late and used the time to sit in the classroom and work on his homework since late students were not allowed  to take the test.

The twenty-one students who took the test remained cheerful, followed my directions without question, and never complained.

Fifteen minutes into the first 25-minute sub-test, however, 7 or 8 of the students were already finished.

As the day progressed, the students finished each sub-test earlier and earlier. Clearly, the test was either way too difficult for them or they just gave up on the test because they could not see that performance on the test would benefit them. Out of the 21 students I tested, perhaps 5 or 6 worked their hardest and appeared totally engaged in the test for the full morning.

Only 5 or 6 students

Why do educators believe that students will improve on a test simply by taking it repeatedly? If we thought we could scare students into working harder in their classes so they would be prepared for the PSAT and SAT, didn’t the lackluster performance of ninth graders disprove that last year? How will my homeroom students who failed miserably on the test last year and probably performed only slightly better this year fare on the PSAT next year? Will this experience actually help them?

All educators complain today about how much instructional time we waste because of standardized testing, standardized testing over which we have little or no control.  Yesterday, however, my school did indeed have some control over who took the PSAT.
In essence, we did this to ourselves, and I wish I knew why. I suspect if I asked that question, the answer would be the always-discouraging “because we’ve always done it this way.”

“Data driven” has become a new buzz term in schools. We all like to say we make decisions based on data or that data drives this program, this procedure, this course. Too often, however, I’m afraid when we say we are data driven it really means that we are driven only to create data because we rarely spend the time analyzing that data to ascertain what it shows us about our students or our programs and whether or not we need to continue, discontinue, or modify what we do.

In the end we have lots of numbers but little understanding of the significance or meaning of those numbers.

I suspect that the handful of kids who stayed home today instead of showing up to take the PSAT might not have had such a bad idea.

When did we reach the point where we believe that testing for the sake
of testing is helpful?