Testing Time Part I

Taking the Iowa tests in grade school was one of my favorite times. It was a few days in the spring when you didn't have to worry about homework, the class schedule was different and you had time to goof off with your friends. But now it has become more of a business for the school than a method of testing the students aptitude.

For the last three weeks the small boy and his friends have been preparing for the ISAT tests, the new version of the old Iowa tests. Since the scores on these tests are directly related to the amount of funding that a school gets they really want the children to do well. This mean weeks of preparation on how to take this kind of test. To me, this defeats the purpose of testing the students.

If you want to find out if the students are being taught what they need to know, the tests should be administered at random and on a surprise date. That way they are unprepared and you will get a better reading of what they know. If you spend weeks on teaching the kids how to read and take a test they are losing time learning the stuff they would need to know to do well on the test on their own.

By the middle school level the students have realized that these test mean nothing to their grade so some of them don't bother trying or even showing up. What they don't realize is it effects the parents more by raising taxes if the school loses funding due to bad test scores, which seems like it should be the other way around but that would open a whole different can of worms. If these tests were a part of the students grade, they might try a little harder.

Instead, our school district has offered prizes like a new Ipod raffled off every day during the testing to students that have shown real effort in taking the tests. I don't know how they gauge real effort since the school doesn't score the tests but that's not the point. Now you're paying kids in prizes to come in and do their best on the tests so we can increase the school's funding. Running the test like a business.

Doesn't anybody else see the backward mentality of this effort? The testing is no longer used to see if the students are learning what they need to move forward in society but rather to determine the amount of money a school receives from the state. Seeing where you rank with other students in the state is a secondary byproduct. If you want better education for your students, I have a plan but you'll have to come back tomorrow for the details.