This summer is bound to get hot due to the escalating controversy surrounding No Child Left Behind. Once this year's state test results designate a number of schools and districts as needing improvement, election year political pressure will blow across always-warm embers and spark August fires. Cries for change will be loud and only the most committed pro-accountability politicians and bureaucrats will withstand the heat. Autumn's backdraft of opposing ideologies will not be contained until the last vote is counted, and, at least in Florida, counted again and again.
As a local school board member, I sit right in the center of the accountability firestorm. I hear the charge that the district is just "teaching to the test." I hear the complaints that the tests do not elicit true knowledge and understanding. And, I hear the claim that state tests are part of the anti-public school agenda. It is this line of thought that I want to address.
One point missing from the accountability debate is that, at least in Ohio, state-mandated tests are not crafted by anti-public school activists out for blood. Nor are they crafted by faceless bureaucrats and testing companies. The tests at the heart of the accountability controversy are the product of Ohio's local public school educators.
I serve on an Ohio Department of Education content advisory committee for a state proficiency test in writing and am the only non-professional-educator on the committee. The other members are all public school teachers or administrators.
The role of the committee is to review test items prepared by a national testing company to ensure that each item is aligned with state content standards, and that each item is appropriate for the given grade level. By consensus, the committee can approve an item as presented, modify it, or create a replacement.
During the initial test item review process, where I see the test company's interesting and benign questions, others see hazards and immediately throw up red flags. Any objection, no matter how trivial, and the test item is sunk and a replacement crafted. As expected, the approved items are bland and uninspiring. Yes, Diane Ravitch certainly got it right in The Language Police when she detailed the level of influence pressure groups have on test and textbook content.
In addition, whole content standards can be deemed "untestable" if there is any concern that the standard cannot be tested "fairly." Multiple choice is always problematic, even when it can be used as a simple means to show mastery. What are considered "testable" are written responses to anemic questions that reflect a small subset of grade-level content. The responses are then evaluated by a rubric of generalities. A proficiency exam in writing becomes a modified, mini-portfolio.
Bland, uninspiring, and incomplete? Certainly. The next step in the anti-public school agenda? Hogwash. The tests are as they are simply because the education professionals (teachers and administrators) want them that way. Nothing is tested that does not meet with educator approval, at least in Ohio. Ohio teachers who complain about the state tests should direct their comments to their peers and professional organizations. These folks are the ones being given professional leave to create the tests that have caused the unfolding accountability controversy. In this instance, the feds, state and testing companies are not the responsible party; the blame lies within the school walls.
Jim Fedako is president of the Olentangy, Ohio Board of Education.
