Smarter Balance, Common Core, and the Basic Test Model

Boy! It has been a long time since I visited here! Lots of things have been going on, and I have been very busy. I completed my first year of teaching still on fire, despite the odds. I've learned a lot about how to close the education gap by closing the attitude gap, how to build a culture and climate in my classroom that encourages students to follow the expectations that are set, and how to teach kids how to take standardized tests.

*awkward pause*

Is that really what we're supposed to be doing? I mean, pretty soon here, we're headed for Smarter Balance, we're implementing Common Core, which is supposed to help us get ready for these tests. Yet, in many places, we are still doing the same dry standardized testing that got us here in the first place. We're supposed to be teaching students how to think and reason, then we give them a multiple choice test that doesn't tell us what they know, but what they can eliminate as a wrong answer - or worse, nothing, because they guess at every answer.

I can spend 90 minutes teaching the best lesson, know my students know what I've taught, and at the end of the day, it doesn't matter, because they will be tested using a method that looks nothing like what I taught. We're tasked with differentiated instruction, then we give out a generic standard test that is not differentiated at all. You don't learn what students know by giving them a multiple choice test. Of that, I am confident. If I can have every student engaged and giving answers, or telling their classmates why an answer is wrong, then I know they have learned. I give them a test, and all I know is that I feel like I have failed.

Just because I feel like this doesn't make me any less inspired or fired up for teaching; it makes me less enthusiastic for the methods of assessment that are common practice in schools today. Next year, we will be steamrolling a new method for testing that looks nothing like what our kids are used to. Yes, we may be teaching the building blocks now, but in the meantime, our students are learning to tune out to tests, because it is oh-so-easy to just pick one instead of thinking about what they're doing. The ones who take it seriously have so much anxiety about it, they don't do well anyway. These tests aren't designed for learners; they're designed for sponges who absorb information and can regurgitate it - for those who can follow directions instead of explore.

I want my career to mean something. I want to be able to say that I have made a difference, and that my students don't feel that they have learned nothing because they aren't able to fit into a simple box. We all know students learn differently, but we expect them to test pretty much the same. I know that some kids are able to complete tasks that others are not, yet they all have to do the same things when it comes to assessment. Formative assessment helps, but doesn't do much when faced with a summative, one-size-fits-all assessment.

I want to be that change. I want to break the chains of conformity. I want to be the inspiration for a student like the teacher who inspired me. I can only hope that I will be able to have that opportunity.