Testimony on Assessment: Race to the Top

Here's more or less what I plan to say tomorrow:

Thank you all for coming to Massachusetts to hold these hearings regarding assessment. As Massachusetts is often cited as home of reforming education, it is good to get the chance to address the question ourselves. Thank you for that opportunity.
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I have spent a great deal of time reading the applicable pages of the Federal Register before this meeting, seeking to somehow answer the questions you pose regarding assessment. I have, I believe, a radical answer for you:

Make testing the province of the classroom teacher

If you indeed wish to have an assessment which “models and supports effective teaching and student learning,” which “allows students, including students with disabilities and English language learners, to demonstrate” their knowledge and skills, which “elicit(s) complex responses,” which “contain(s) varied and unpredictable item types and content sampling, which “produce(s) reports that are relevant, actionable, timely, accurate, and displayed in ways that are clear and understandable,” which “make(s) effective and appropriate use of technology,” which is “valid, reliable, and fair,” which is “appropriately secure,” which has “the fastest possible turnaround time,” and which is, finally, “able to be maintained, administered, and scored at a cost that is sustainable over time,” the only way forward is to make testing the province of the classroom teacher. A standardized test of any kind will not meet all of these standards, but excellent teachers across the country do it every day.

There are ways in which things would need to change. The first part might be the most difficult for some: first of all, we would need to see classroom teachers as highly trained professionals who are indeed in the best position to assess their students, rather than as an obstacle to overcome or co-opted in order to achieve educational excellence.

Mentoring our young teachers once they are in the classroom, making certain that we truly are supporting “effective teaching and student learning” would be enormously important. It takes practice as well to make assessments “valid, reliable, and fair.” Making assessments appropriate for all students, including those with disabilities and those who are learning English is again something teachers need to master and which can best be done with mentoring. Master teachers do all of the above, and new teachers can learn it, but the only place to learn it is in the classroom with cooperation of both. That takes time, and that means money, but if it is indeed that important, then it should be funded through your assessment grant.

Quality evaluation of teachers—a skill far too few principals are trained well in—is also important. There are those who need further training or who ought to work in another field. The time to discover this is not after they have spent years in the classroom, but it is very early in their careers. Appropriate training in assessment of teachers is an important piece of student assessment, as well, and it ought to be funded as part of assessment.

If we wish to make appropriate use of technology, we must have that technology. Currently, too many classrooms have little or no technology to speak of. One cannot educate 21st century students on Windows 95. Assisting teachers and students in using the technology, and seeing that they have the appropriate support staff, is a necessary part of this as well. If it is a valuable piece of assessment, however, it ought to be funded.

Creating varied items, assessing complex responses, making assessments applicable for a variety of students and producing reports that are produced in a timely fashion can only happen with small enough class sizes. Having thirty children in a classroom (as we have in Worcester in 7% of our classes) makes this impossible. Smaller classes means more teachers, and in some cases, more classrooms. If it is a valuable piece of assessment, however, it should be funded.

You might note as well that this system meets your requirements that teachers be involved in scoring, that it be easily adaptable, that the technology involved supports assessments (and is cost-effective), and that the technology used be easily adaptable. It also goes a long way to truly heading toward international assessment, as this is much more like what the countries we are looking to as models are doing; moving towards a giant standardized assessment or two is going in the opposite—and ineffective—direction. Speaking from the perspective of 16 years of what has been called “ed reform” in Massachusetts, moving assessment away from the classroom—away from the teacher and student—does not reform anything. You cannot replace a teacher and a teacher’s assessment by a computer or a committee.

If we truly wish to educate our children in a way that makes them good citizens who are well-educated and well-informed, we would do best to start closest to them, in their classrooms, rather than sent $350 million dollars to testing committees and programs. Mentored teachers, quality technology, and smaller classes would be a great help in supporting quality education.