Why you should not “opt out” of state testing
There I was, presenting information on state testing to a group of parents at a District Advisory Committee (DAC) meeting. I was sharing data at the district level and school level on the past year’s student mastery and year-to-year growth results. A parent got up and said “Why should I care about state testing results? My daughter is a gifted learner and gets straight A’s and B’s in all her classes.” That was a valid question and I tried to engage her in a dialogue and quickly realized we needed to have a longer conversation. To be sensitive to the other parents who wanted to know how schools across the district were doing, I continued with the presentation and told her I will get back to her at the end of the meeting.
At the end of the DAC meeting, the parents and I resumed our conversation. I said it is important for us to celebrate students’ strengths and focus on “holes of knowledge” to address their learning needs. Coincidentally, the daughter was helping her mother, the DAC Chair, clean up after the meeting. The mother was still not convinced why she should care about the results on state testing. Recognizing that I was not getting anywhere with this conversation, I turned to the daughter and asked her: “What do you think?” “Mom,” she began: “I’ve never told you. My math teacher simply collects our homework and we don’t get any feedback from him. I got an “A” in his class last year, but learned nothing. We had a lot of teacher talk, completed worksheets in class, and turned in our homework assignments.” This was a huge “shock” to both parents. The mother was proud and bragging just a moment earlier that she talked to her daughter every day and had a great relationship with her. She now became interested in learning how her daughter was doing in math.
I asked her if she knew what the scale scores on state testing meant. She said no and I introduced her to my “Mastery Calculator” (check out the link). She plugged in her daughter’s math scale scores and found it showed her the mastery score was 2.57. I said this meant her daughter was processing math at an “Apprentice” level as a 7th grader. That’s akin to someone scoring a course grade “D.” In an ideal world, I said, based on the “A” she scored in the math class, I would expect her daughter’s mastery score on the state test to be between 5.00 and 5.99. I added that this score would have confirmed her daughter had truly exceeded grade level expectations. That’s what a course grade “A” would represent. OK, if not “Masterful,” a score of at least 4.00 to 4.99 on the state test would have confirmed her daughter had met grade level expectations and was processing math at a “Skilled” level. That’s what a course grade “B” would represent. The results on the state tests did not even qualify her performance as someone who was approaching grade level expectations. An “Able” learner would have had a mastery score of at least 3.00 to 3.99. That’s what a course grade “C” would represent.
The parents now wanted to know more. I said as people who care about student success, we need to keep our eye on multiple data points. At a minimum, we need to know and act on student mastery scores, their growth scores – which should show at least a year’s worth of growth in a year’s time, and their postsecondary readiness scores. Knowing what content areas a student was strong in and what opportunities for improvements exist become important, from one year to the next. Left unaddressed, these “holes of knowledge” grow wider and deeper as students get routinely promoted from one year to the next. With this sudden epiphany, these parents wanted other parents in the district to know and act on their child’s state testing information.
Here’s my plea: If you “opt out” you will not get a critical data point on your child’s academic progress. Look at the state testing results. If you do that, you will maximize your child’s success in school and beyond.
As a middle school science teacher myself, I am not surprised by the story above. Many parents do not understand the value of state testing results. Parents may need education on the value of their student’s standardize data and how it can help them appreciate their child’s growth as a student. The reality is, especially in middle school, that course grades can be more reflective of student work habits (homework completion, class participation, group work, etc…) over content mastery (Knowledge demonstration and its novel application).
At my own school we are employing a weighted grading system with a sliding scale towards content mastery. Grades are entered as “content mastery” or “work habits”. The weighting starts out as a 60/40 split in 6th grade and by 8th grade they are split 80/20, respectively. Our goal with this weighting system is to help ensure grades are reflective of student learning over compliant behaviors. State testing data then can be used in part to confirm course grades are reflective of appropriate achievement by both staff and parents.
Is state testing perfect? I don’t know anyone who thinks so. However, I think most informed educators would agree that they are important outside objective data parents and schools can used to measure student success. The data from state testing should be used by parents to understand their student’s current success and standing compared to other students state-wide and to inform schools on their success and help staff reflect on the value of their course design and value.
Parents who “opt-out” their students from state testing do not receive valuable achievement information on their student’s learning and hinder their school’s ability to best serve students.