This week I am pleased to provide a ‘guest’ column from Sue Luppino, a Gateway Junior High School English teacher, regarding standardized testing. Ms. Luppino also provided readability research on PARCC testing instructions at the PARCC informational meeting at Gateway on April 11. Her information, as well as the presentations from the DESE, may be found on the district’s website under school committee presentations. I believe Ms. Luppino makes some extremely valid points in this letter; points which have not been adequately reviewed in the ongoing debate about standardized testing and its use in education.
Ms. Luppino’s column:
As I have sought to best articulate my reasons for my dis-ease with PARCC and other standardized tests such as MCAS, I have often made the mistake of referencing the test itself. I’ve tested readability, considered the lack of relevance for particular populations, questioned the value of multiple choice, open response, and essay questions as a means of measuring cognition, etc. etc.
This morning, as I looked out on this beautiful spring day lamenting that once again I would have to give up time with my family in order to defend my students against a system I know is inherently flawed, I realized it isn’t about this test….nor any of the high-stakes tests I may yet encounter as a public educator. It is about thinking we can use a standardized tool to not only measure the cognitive level of human beings, but to then categorize them as Warning, Needs Improvement, Proficient, or Advanced.
Although we have been pressured to claim something different, let’s be honest. We already know all children are not inherently equal at every age, in every subject when it comes to their innate, measurable intelligences—something I have learned to think of as their school-centric intelligences. Quite frankly, neither are all the adults in this room. Some of you are endowed with a language or mathematical brilliance that reaches deep into your DNA. Some of you are creative in ways that can literally not be quantified, but what you create is of such beauty and grace that it leaves others speechless.
I see this diversity in my own family, and we have readily admitted to each other on more than one occasion, “You may not be as smart as me in x, y, or z, but my God, you are so talented at a, b, or c.” You see this in nature too. And, for those of you, who like me, believe in a power much greater than us, it is part of what humbles us and encourages us to exercise patience, kindness, and other challenging virtues. This diversity of human thought and ability is not something that should be shamed or posted on a data wall or used to levelize a district’s performance–it should be celebrated, valued, and yes, FOSTERED by a child’s teachers.
We are pressured to believe that our system has failed and must be fixed. The bottom line is, I do not need a state think tank, nor a multi-billion dollar British company, nor countless wasted instructional hours to tell me many of my seventh graders “need improvement” in their thinking and articulation skills. I have already considered their personal needs, abilities and interests. I have cajoled, encouraged, motivated, prayed for, cried with, and respected them for what they bring to our community. I have forged a bond with their parents and sought to understand what will engage each child as a means of getting him or her to tirelessly address the subject matter that I love because I have a propensity for it. They are twelve and thirteen year olds; of course they need improvement.
And if, at the end of the day, they are one step closer to communicating in a way that will earn them respect, make them feel empowered, and guarantee they have place in our democratic society, I will have done my job as their English teacher. No test in the world will tell us that. A careful review of the child’s progress will. Standards-based grading will. A portfolio will. I’m not anti-assessment; I just believe it can be done and should be done in a way that does not waste billions of dollars of funding that could be used to actually teach.
