Ethics and standardized tests

Hello everyone,

Another ethical issue will be coming into focus this week as C-track takes the CSTs.

I know teachers that are morally opposed to standardized tests. They honestly believe that the tests prescribed by the State of California are evil, are evil intended, and ought to be opposed.

I have thought about this for a long time, and I have even attempted to approach it several times in writing.

I have decided that my best course is speak as directly as possible.

When it comes right down to it, the State has every right to prescribe tests, and we have no right to undermine, oppose, or cheat on those tests. Not, at least, while we are public employees.

I cannot speak for the intention of all the legislators who support standardized testing; I cannot personally endorse the wisdom of how all the tests are set up; I have frequently objected to the silly sorts of preparations for taking state tests that focus more on test-taking skills than on teaching content.

But at my most rebellious, I have still recognized the State's right to require those tests, and I have always honestly administered them. I have aligned my curriculum to the standards on the tests, and I have--when they were available to me--used test results to guide my teaching. I have often taken it as a great compliment when my students have said that they felt a test was easy, and I have felt very concerned when my students told me there were things on the test they had never heard of.

I have had mixed results over the years, and the last few years of my teaching, I didn't have students in academic classes that took tests. My AP classes were all seniors, and my elective classes were wildly mixed in their test scores.

That means that I don't have much but some half-baked personal theories about what will raise test scores.

But I still believe that it is good to raise test scores. While I object to trying to raise them by superficial means ("teach the kids to mark the letter 'B' when in doubt, because statistically, 'B' recurs more often" we were taught some years ago in a particularly objectionable attempt at raising test scores), I also object to ignoring them or trying to avoid my share of the responsibility for them.

I may argue and give strong opinions about how curriculum and practice can and should affect the CSTs. I believe, for example, that research supports music's role in increasing math and verbal ability; I believe that learning a foreign language improves English ability; and I acknowledge that a wide variety of reading and writing strategies need to be accessed. I may be annoyed by the amount of my class time that was taken up with giving somebody else's test (who isn't?). I wish we could spend more time teaching to the test, and less time selling the test to students. And I wonder if there are ways in which the inherent motivational factors of the CAHSEE can't be transferred some way to the CSTs.

I may exercise whatever power and influence I have in the community outside my classroom to effect improvements on standardized testing in California.

But in my classroom, I have legal obligations to the CSTs that I will fulfill: I will ensure that they are administered properly, and I will ensure that my students are prepared and motivated to take them.

Most of you are ensuring the same thing. I wish you and your students the best of luck on this high stakes motivational game. May they all be "proficient" at least.

Jeff Combe

Below is Article 25 of the UTLA contract on "Academic Freedom and Responsibility." I only include the first section. It covers much of what I have written about the last week or so.

ARTICLE XXV

ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY

1.0 Lesson Content: In the investigation, presentation and interpretation of facts and ideas within the prescribed course of study, teachers shall be free to examine, present and responsibly discuss various points of view in an atmosphere of open inquiry, provided that the instruction, material, or discussion:

a. is appropriate to the age and maturity level of the students;

b. is related to and consistent with the prescribed curriculum, course of study, and textbook/materials for the class in question; and

c. is a fair and balanced academic presentation of various points of view consistent with accepted standards of professional responsibility, rather than advocacy, personal opinion, bias or partisanship.