"A2L" & The Seedy Underbelly of Standardized Testing

When a normal, non-teacher type, person thinks "high-stakes testing", s/he is thinking about the "SBA". Standards-Based Assessment. At least in New Mexico...these things have different names/acronyms in other states, which could lead us to about 5,000 words on how different states do testing.

But that would be a digression, and we're not doing that today. One big reason for not doing digressions today is that my Dell laptop's hard-drive blowed up this morning and I am typing this post on my wife's Mac. My feelings about Macs would be yet another digression, but I'll foreshorten a long, long rant by just mentioning that typing on my wife's keyboard is like walking on poorly-laid flagstone, in the rain, when one has had more than three beers.

And despite the strong, strong temptation to run with one of the 47 possible digressions possible from the immediately preceding paragraphs, I am sticking to schools and standardized testing.

For you see...standardized testing isn't quite as simple as you, dear normal non-obsessed, non-teacher person might think. For despite the fact that everybody from the media to parents to new Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan focuses on the "high-stakes testing" that is, in New Mexico, "SBA", there are plenty of other tests during the year that actually have much more impact on the individual student.

In fact, perhaps the single most surreal aspect in the hyper-surreal universe of "high-stakes testing" is that students very, very often do not even know how they did on the SBAs. Truth be told, most parents don't know or remember how their kid did either.

As a teacher of the "gifted", I have these absolutely worthless required meetings with parents/students once per year. Don't ask me why, or I promise I'm going straight to Digression Land. At these meetings I always show the student/parent the kid's SBA score. About 98% of the time the parent and kid look at each other while looking at the SBA numbers, and ask "Did you know this score?" Each of them then shrug their shoulders and say "no, did you?"

And then, being a teacher of the "gifted" at a "liberal" school with lots of involved, politically-aware parents, I often get to hear from these parents about how much they hate the SBAs. Upon hearing these mini-harangues, I shrug my shoulders and move on to the next part of the absolutely worthless meeting.

Hence, what gets called "High-stakes testing" is only "high-stakes" for the school/District/State. But SBA is just one of the buttload of standardized tests kids take each year.

The most important of these additional tests is, in New Mexico at least, the "A2L: Assess to Learn". The A2L (and no, I'm not going to divert my/your attention by pointing out how incredibly stupid the name and faux-hip-hop acronym are) is a three-test regimen over the course of a school year. It used to be two tests, one to see how kids are already prepared for the work covered in the new school year, and the second to see how well they use/comprehend the work that was taught that school year.

But that wasn't enough, so now we have three. More to the point, we have a third A2L test to give in early/mid-May. Yes, we are going to give a test about two weeks before school gets out, only a month after two semi-solid weeks of "high-stakes testing".

But it gets better than that. Not only are we giving yet another test right after the "big" test and just before we get out of school, but this test has very important ramifications for the student. Namely, students scoring below 70% on this test (Reading/Math) are supposed to be placed in special "remediation" classes next year.

Placement in these classes may, or may not, mean a student can't take an elective next year. "Failure" on this particular A2L test can mean no Band or Orchestra for a student. It also definitely (well, almost definitely) means they will be placed in a "remediation" class, taught through some "curriculum-in-a-box" program that costs thousands of dollars and was purchased through some shady process that somebody should turn into a Pulitzer Prize-winning series of newspaper articles (if in fact newspapers continue to exist by the time the next Pulitzer is awarded).

The word "supposed" and phrase "may or may not" appear above because our school has not yet formalized a schedule for next year to address the necessary outcomes dictated by the failure of students on this all-important A2L that will be given about two weeks before school is out. We have no idea how many students will "fail" this very important test. We have no clear direction from the District on what schedule we should use for these "failing" students next year. We don't exactly know if we are supposed to place students based on the single score from this 3rd A2L or an averaging of all three. Ergo, we don't really know exactly how many students can have zero, one, two, three electives next year. It's quite amazing, really, how much we don't know.

But I've saved the best for last.

First, let's look at the Math test. It has 43 questions. Our Math Department looked at the test, and immediately noticed that 4 of the questions were unusable. For example, one question offered four answers, none of which was the right answer. And no there wasn't a "none of the above" answer. There just wasn't a correct answer anywhere. As a Math colleague quickly pointed out, 4 bad questions means 9% of the overall test is worthless. What is to be done with the worthless 9%? Do the kids get these right for "free"? Do we get new replacement tests delivered to us sometime around June 15th or so?

Again, these are the truly "high-stakes" tests. Let's look at the Reading test.

This test is full of long passages that students read and then bubble in some multiple-choice answers. I'm talking passages longer than the overly long blog post you are currently wading through. At the "test training" we had last Friday we were specifically told that students cannot make any marks in the test booklets. Zero.

In other words, students can't highlight the passages, circle important words, nothing. Given that we have all taught students to do this for years, it's a little weird to have them suddenly stop doing this on a really important test with seriously long passages.

If you or I were taking this test, and we had been told it meant the difference between having a fun elective next year and some boring as Hell "remediation" class, we would sure as Hell highlight and mark up the test booklet regardless of who told us we couldn't. The damn test booklet would be as yellow as a Kansas cornfield in September by the time we got done. And we would turn the test booklet in, mumble "sorry" without meaning it, and walk away.

Of course if our kids do this they are to be branded as test-destroying miscreants. Oh, the humanity.

Lastly, the question came up at the "training" about possibly making copies of the test, thus allowing some students to have an extra copy to highlight/note through. We were specifically told this was unacceptable. Why tests could then be copied and saved for later!!! Tests could be left lying around and...oh, again, the humanity...

Having now typed about 1,200 words on my wife's lousy keyboard about this subject I can certainly see why the "normal" among us doesn't really know much about truly important standardized tests like the "A2L". It's complicated and boring and full of guilty secrets.

The "high-stakes testing" situation in this way reminds me, strangely, of drinking and the Irish. The SBA is like "St. Patrick's Day", a day in which everyone can be Irish and feel a weird kinship with the Irish by drinking heavily. Well, the A2L and other tests (and yes, there are plenty of others) are more like being Irish every day. The daily routine of drinking, wearing green and burning peat in the fireplace isn't so glamorous or worthy of celebration. It's kind of a drag really, laborious and full of guilty, terrible secrets.

And I say this as a person with significant Irish "blood". And a teacher.

Oh well, A2L Go Bragh, or something like that. Meanwhile, I gotta go order a laptop hard drive before I throw my wife's keyboard through the window.

Have a good week, everyone...four weeks left, teacher friends. Four.