The Stakes are High

High stakes testing.  

It is a pretty hot topic in most school systems. 

In most places around the world that use them!

The video rants against them on YouTube are endless.  There are nearly 14,000 videos on the topic!

But despite the Internet's rage against schools' use of high stakes testing, we still use them.

We still use them a lot. 

A lot, a lot!

It's a funny paradox education and testing.  

We know that there is a need for teaching reforms and that our past methods aren't working, that no child is the same and we must meet their learning needs.  Yet at the end of it all... we give them all the same standardize test (with minor exceptions), that do not make any of the learning allowances, do not make students feel good about themselves, that stack them up in a comparative line against all the other millions of children in their age bracket!

All because the government needs to know how the children of the nation are doing academically.

So just get out your #2 pencils and pick 'C' if/when you don't know.

Heads up ~ you're gonna need a lot of pencils!

Ohio is no exception to this testing predicament.   

Here is how Ohio stacks up with standardized testing:

1. Schools will no longer be conducting the OAA (Ohio Achievement Assessments) taken by students in grade 3-8 to check "what they know and are able to do in various subjects."
2. PARCC is also out.
3. AIR (American Institutes of Research) is in as the new testing format/maker.
1. The new state tests "measure student progress toward Ohio’s Learning Standards. They help make sure every Ohio student receives a high-quality education. Student test results show that students have the knowledge and skills they need to move successfully to their next steps in education or a career."
1. AIR was used last year to test Social Studies and Science
2. This year it will be use to test all areas - English Language Arts, Math, SS and Science.
2. There will only be one test this year and it will require less time
1. Each test will be approximately three hours (180 minutes) and will be divided into two parts. Districts will choose whether their students will take a test in two 90-minute sessions or in one 180-minute session. 
2. School districts will select either 10 consecutive days (for paper tests) or 15 consecutive days (for online tests) during the windows of dates allocated for the tests. 
4. Kindergarteners take the Ohio's Kindergarten Readiness Assessment.
1. It has six components: social skills (including social and emotions development, and approaches towards learning), mathematics, social studies, language and literacy, and physical well-being and motor development.
5. Children in grades 1-3 are given the Diagnostic Assessments "to provide a tool to check the progress of students towards meeting the standards." 
1. Students are tested twice - at the beginning and end of the year.
2. Districts/schools must administer a reading diagnostic assessment to all students in kindergarten through grade three.
6. A Math Diagnostic Assessment must be given once a year to students in first and second grade.
7. A Writing Assessments must be given at least once a year to students in grades 1-3.
8. Ohio's Alternate Assessment for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities (AASCD) is aligned to Ohio's Learning Standards-Extended (OLS-E) and designed to allow students with significant cognitive disabilities to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in an appropriately rigorous assessment.
9. ELL students will take the "ELPA21 assessment system [to] measure and report on students' English language proficiency overall, as well as in reading, writing, speaking, listening and comprehension."
10. Students will still be required to pass all 5 parts of the Ohio Graduation Test in order to receive their diplomas, but it is changing.

(Ohio Dept. of Ed, 2015)

Not to mention graduating seniors will also have to take the PSAT, SAT, and/or ACT WorkKeys, ACT to be able to further their education. Or if you did not complete high school the first time round you can take the GED.

And all of this testing isn't making our students any better.

Common Core test scores from the 2014-2015 school year saw less than half - LESS THAN HALF! - of all students able to meet the standards. About 26 percent to 40 percent of elementary and middle school students met or exceeded expectations on math and English exams. High school exams had higher results, but officials said those tests were taken by fewer and mostly advanced ninth-grade students. (WLWT, 2015).

StateImpact, a reporting project of NPR (2015), reviewed Ohio's testing process as follows:

WHY ARE THOSE TESTS GIVEN?

The main federal legislation governing education, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act requires states to test students annually. The requirement started in 1994, but was strengthened in 2001 with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act.

In 2012, Ohio received permission from the federal Department of Education to not comply with certain parts of the No Child Left Behind law. That waiver, as it is called, mostly allows Ohio freedom from meeting the federal goal of having all students proficient in reading and math by 2014. It doesn’t significantly change the standardized tests students must take.

HOW ARE THE TEST RESULTS USED?

For students:

• Teachers and families can use test results to identify subject areas in which students struggle. Teachers and administrators also look at test results as one factor in making decisions about promoting students to the next grade.
• As mentioned earlier, there’s that Third Grade Reading Guarantee.
• In general, students must pass all five Ohio Graduation Tests in order to earn a high-school diploma.

For teachers:

• The results of the Ohio Achievement Assessments are used to compute  a statistical measure called “value-added.” Value-added measures how much students progress academically during a given year compared to how much they were expected to progress, regardless of their academic level at the start of the year.
• Starting in 2013-14, teachers in all Ohio public school districts (and some charter schools) for which value-added results are available will be evaluated in part on them. This means that looking at how much progress each teacher’s students made in a given year will be one part of how each teacher is judged.
• Increasingly, school districts are tying decisions about teacher layoffs, terminations and recalls to their evaluations.
• [The Ohio Teacher Evaluation System was passed in new law for the 2015-2016 school year and beyond to evaluate teachers. It allows "districts [to] monitor educator performance and student growth – and use [the] information to continually improve student achievement. ...   It modifies the alternative framework [by extending] safe harbor provisions for educators who use value-added ratings from state tests" (OH Dept. of Ed.,2015).]

For schools:

• Public schools whose students perform poorly on state tests year after year are subject to a range of consequences.
• Low-performing traditional public schools have to change how they operate. That could mean replacing staff or using a new curriculum. They may also be eligible for extra funding to support school “turnaround” efforts.
• Charter schools with poor state ratings for multiple years must shut down. State ratings are based largely on state test performance.

ARE THESE STATE STANDARDIZED TESTS BAD FOR STUDENTS AND SCHOOLS?

Some people think so.

They say standardized tests present a limited view of student performance.

• Some students may know the subject, but get nervous (or be sick or unhappy or distracted) on test day and perform poorly.

• The tests judge only whether students have a basic knowledge of a subject matter. The tests don’t encourage schools to teach students higher-level knowledge or skills or give students a way to demonstrate higher-level knowledge or skills.

They say it’s a bad idea to evaluate students, teachers and schools — and make important decisions about them — based largely on standardized test performance.

They also say that the emphasis placed on standardized tests leads schools and teachers decide to “teach to the test,” narrowing what students are taught.

Again, there are nearly 14,000 videos on YouTube raging against standardize testing!

With Ohio having so many tests and assessments that are state/nation mandated it is hard to say whether or not educators are actually teaching to the tests.  Since Common Core is the driving force behind much of the state's curriculum and tests, it's hard to see how they are not hand in hand.  With the shift in test provides this year, perhaps the overall benefits of the CC headache will be seen.  

Or not.

However, Ohio kids did do better than kids from Illinois. Ohio had more kids score in the top two ratings levels than Illinois on the new exams students took this spring through the PARCC testing consortium. Ohio had the edge in several grades and in both reading and math, but usually by very small amounts. Illinois bested Ohio only in eighth grade math" (O'Donnell, 2015). 
But this might not be saying much, as Illinois has ~70% of its students not meeting standards (Krishnamurthy, 2015).

Illinois has fully adopted Common Core and with it made changes to its standardized testing (similar to Ohio).  Students in 3rd through 8th grade take a standards-based test called the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT). Standards-based means that test items are based on grade-specific Illinois academic content standards 

Here's a breakdown of their standardize testing:

1. PARCC (for grades 3-8, testing English Language Arts and Mathematics).
1. Students in 3rd, 5th, 6th and 8th grade also take a writing test, while students in 4th and 7th grade take a science test. In addition, schools can choose to administer ISAT tests in physical development and health, social science and fine arts.
2. Dynamic Learning Maps (DLM) (for students with cognitive learning disabilities).
3. Access for ELLs and Alternate Access for ELLs.
4. ACT Plus Writing as well as three ACT WorkKeys assessments (Reading for Information, Applied Mathematics, and Locating Information) will be used for  graduation assessments.

(Illinois State Board of Education, 2015)

So... by similar to Ohio I mean that have some of the tests we do, but nowhere near as many. 

It's all a lot to take. 

Quite literally.

  

Time will tell if it is actually helping improve the quality of our educational system.

It's only our children we are making suffer in the meantime.

References:

Common Core test results in Ohio lower than previous scores. (2015, September 15). Retrieved September 19, 2015.

Illinois State Board of Education. (2015). Retrieved September 19.

Krishnamurthy, M. (2015, September 17). 70% of Illinois students not meeting standardized test expectations. Retrieved September 19, 2015.
O'Donnell, P. (2015, September 17). Common Core comparison: Ohio students have edge on PARCC scores over Illinois, but results are incomplete. Retrieved September 19, 2015.

Ohio Department of Education. (2015). Retrieved September 19, 2015.

Ohio Standardized Testing 101. (2015). Retrieved September 19, 2015.