The Testing Season

February 13 & 14, & April 9, 2016

Days 230 & 231 as an Oklahoma Teacher

The testing season is almost finished. These tests are supposed  to show if teachers actually taught their students valuable information, and if the students retained the information from the class. I only played the testing game for a couple of years, and that was enough for me. These tests cost too much money. Here are some problems with the testing season.

Problem 1:
The tests take too much time, four to six weeks out of the second semester. Once the test is over
for that subject area, the students think that school is over, and it is difficult to get them to focus on
something else. Also, I have students in my AP class who don't like to have test preparation. Their attitudes change if I have them practice for the AP test. I equate this change in behavior to all the tests they have taken throughout the years. In my opinion, the AP test is the most important besides the ACT.

Problem 2:
I believe that the quality of writing has gone down because the writing part of the EOI limits the creativity and the knowledge of the students. For students, writing is only important for a test score, not for the love of expressing ideas. The purpose of writing has been lost; they don't understand the power of words, what writers say, and what people do with it.

Problem 3:
This one comes from one of my students who wrote his senior paper about testing. He said that more important concepts are left out of lesson plans. In my opinion, he is saying that tests limit the learning of students because some teachers only teach what will be on the test. If a class has higher-level students, does the teacher go beyond what is on the test to help the students? Students become bored with education and lose the reasons why learning is important.


Problem 4:
This student also said that students don't take the tests seriously anymore. They know that colleges look at the ACT scores, not the EOI scores. After students pass their required number of tests, they do not care about the other two they have to take. When testing became a way to evaluate teachers, then the integrity of the tests was lost. Maybe, we should evaluate teachers and schools on how successful students are at the college and career levels.

Problem 5:
Students should be applying what they know to create and to innovate new ideas. Sitting in from of a computer screen for a couple of hours to take a multiple-choice test only shows what students remember. We need students to apply the skills that they have learned to solve a problem. Why are we testing? What do we want students to be able to do? Will these tests help students prepare for college? These are questions to be pondered and answered.