Is There Too Much
Testing in the New Common Core?
The
State of Utah has adopted the new Common Core and hired a company to write not
only end of the year tests, but tests that teachers are expected to give their
students throughout the year. The middle
schools in most of the state are developing weekly tests that students will
take in each subject covering the learning goals established in the new Common
Core. The students who pass these weekly
tests are given enhancement activities while those who do not pass are retaught
the skill and retested. Is all of this
testing good for students?
The purpose of
testing is to determine if a student has mastered a skill, but not all
objectives are easily tested. In English
Language Arts, students are expected to write two essays: an argumentative and
an informational essay with both using correct M.L.A. documentation. In order to achieve that goal, students need
to develop the ability to analyze information, evaluate its relevance, select
appropriate information and write it in the coherent, well-written essay that
uses parenthetical footnotes and a Works Cited.
To do this students need to not only have skills in punctuation, grammar
and usage (the old standbys), but be able to think critically, and compose a
carefully thought-through response on command.
Developing these skills takes a variety of learning tactics: modeling
good writing, discussions and analysis of nonfiction, materials, as well as
grammar, punctuations and usage drills. More
importantly the student needs to write, reflect and rewrite. If students are taking weekly tests on a
single learning goal, the teacher will not have time needed to complete the
more important learning activities.
As well
as the two essays, the students must pass a test on reading skills, literary
analysis, vocabulary development and various other language arts skills. Some of these skills could be contained in
weekly tests, but then schools are focusing on the least important skills and
the students with the lowest potential for success. Schools should meet the educational needs of
all students, not just the lowest ten percent.
The new Common Core requires teachers to increase the difficulty
(lexiles) of the reading materials that is taught. That is a positive move. The new Common Core requires students to read
both fiction and non-fiction and is not dissimilar to curriculum that was used
in schools thirty years ago. With the
advent of Adolescent Literature, many school allowed the reading materials to decline
so that many books that had previously been taught in fifth grade were now
being taught in the ninth grade. This too
is a positive note. The new Common Core
Curriculum not only focuses on fiction, but nonfiction. Since students need to be able read
non-fiction to be successful in the real world, this too is an advantage. In order to motivate students to read these
more difficult pieces of literature and non-fiction, teachers need time and an
opportunity to introduce them in creative ways or students will quickly become disinterested
and bored. If teachers are expected to
give these weekly tests, they will be forced to resort to short condensed of
selected bits of literature and articles instead of full pieces of
literature. This means our students will
become illiterate and lack any culture.
End of
the year testing has its place, but the administrators and legislatures need to
get out of the classroom and let the teachers do their magic. Teachers are not robots and neither are
students. Weekly testing will reduce what
our students know, help them become uncultured, illiterate, unprepared young
people who will drop out of school from sheer boredom. Don’t let that happen.