Teach to the Student, Not the Test
Bonnie
K. Robinson
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Alicia
Dervin
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
National education reform has
led to increased accountability and high-stakes testing in primary and
secondary grades. Testing has become a billion-dollar industry in the United
States, and many schools have created a culture of teaching to the test, while
eliminating or reducing instruction of non-tested subjects. Standardized
assessments are used to evaluate teachers and schools. However, validity can be
questioned when significant gaps in student performance continue to exist
between racial subgroups. The purpose of this article is to examines progress
made in closing the Black-White achievement gap, by
analyzing fourth and eighth graders’ achievement on NAEP assessments from 2005
to 2017. The author suggests reducing the number of standardized assessments,
and replacing test preparation curriculum with culturally relevant instruction.
Keywords: standardized
testing, high stakes testing, culturally relevant pedagogy
Over the past fifty years,
trends on national assessments have linked low academic achievement with
children of color and low-income students (Hedges & Nowell, 1999; Koretz,
2017; Moore & Lewis, 2012). In an attempt to track and increase student
achievement, a series of national education reforms have been created, placing
a greater emphasis on high stakes testing in the United States (Koretz, 2017;
Zhao, 2018). In 1965, President Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act as part of his “War on Poverty”. In an effort to increase success
for low-income students, the Johnson administration created Head Start
preschools and Title I funding (Ellis, 2007). Twenty years later, the Reagan
administration published A Nation at Risk in 1983, which provided a
litany of alarming statistics on America’s failing education. The landmark
report urged for reform, including more rigorous and measurable standards
(Graham, 2013). No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was enacted nearly two decades
later, federally requiring all states to administer standardized tests in
reading and math in grades 3-8, and once in high school. States were required
to report test data on a variety of subgroups based on race, income, and
ability (Ellis, 2007).
In 2009, the Obama
administration unveiled Common Core State Standards and Race to the Top grants,
which encouraged states to adopt common standards and assessments. In 2015, the
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law. Among other things, ESSA
measures student progress of high standards through annual statewide
assessments (Sanchez & Turner, 2017). While every federal reform has been
created with an intention of creating equal opportunity and improving quality
of education, the increased accountability has led to a testing culture in
schools where teachers are pressured to teach to the test, rather than the
individual students. This article seeks to answer the questions: (a) how has
increased accountability through high stakes testing impacted the Black-White
achievement gap, and (b) has the Black-White achievement gap narrowed since
NCLB?
Literature
Review
Standardized
testing has become highly profitable, surging to a $2 billion industry in the
United States. The testing industry is monopolized by four major companies:
Harcourt, McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin, and Pearson (Kamenetz, 2015). In 2017,
Pearson alone delivered 25.3 million standardized tests online, and 20.4
million paper-based assessments for K-12 students in the U.S. (Davis &
Molnar, 2018). Education reforms have drastically increased the frequency of
standardized testing. Since No Child Left Behind, every public-school student
in grades 3-8 must take at least two standardized tests per year, however, the
average student will take ten or more standardized tests each year (Lazarin,
2014). The Center for American Progress published a report of research
conducted in 14 districts across seven states for the 2013-2014 school year
(Lazarin, 2014). According to Lazarin (2014), “Students are tested as
frequently as twice per month and an average of once per month. [...] students
take as many as 20 standardized assessments per year and an average of 10 tests
in grades 3-8” (p.3). Despite a high frequency of standardized testing, the
amount of time spent testing in the districts that were studied was less than
2% of instructional time. However, researchers found a culture of testing that
placed more emphasis on test preparation than actual learning (Lazarin, 2014).
Several states have
implemented additional testing for designated grades. Studies from North
Carolina Department of Public Instruction (Guindon, Huffman, Socol, &
Takahashi-Rial, 2014) reveal that third graders spend a minimum of 13 hours
each year on state and federal assessments. North Carolina mandates mClass
assessments for all K-3 students, which are administered to students
individually. This one-to-one testing means students will not receive
instruction while the educator individually tests their classmates. According
to Guindon et al. (2014), “One LEA [Local Education Agency] estimated that
teachers lose 45 hours of instruction per year due to mClass” (p. 4). In
addition to national and state assessments, students spend significant time
completing district benchmarks and common formative assessments. Kamenetz
(2015) found that New York schools designated seven weeks of their 36-week
school year for testing. This included practice tests and mock assessments to
increase students’ testing stamina. Teachers spend hours of instruction preparing
students with test preparation material, including how to best answer multiple
choice questions (Koretz, 2017; Zhao, 2018).
Not only are standardized
assessments changing how teachers instruct students, they also impact what
content is taught. Tested subjects such as math and reading receive greater
emphasis in instructional time, while the arts, social studies, and sciences
are neglected (Rose, 2014). Low-performing students are often encouraged to take
test-related courses rather than electives (Greene, 2018). In an effort to
increase test scores, children of color are more likely to receive
drill-and-skill teaching through route memorization (Kohn, 2000; Zhao, 2018). Milner (2013) cautions against scripted and narrowed
curriculum reform, particularly in urban settings, as it limits authentic
learning and makes it more difficult for teachers to respond to individual
classroom needs. This has future implications, as evidenced by 2015-2016
graduation rates, where Black and Hispanic populations were 5-10 percentage
points below the national graduation rate (“Data: U.S. Graduation”, 2017).
In global
comparisons, administering annual standardized tests is unique to the United
States, particularly at the elementary level. Many nations around the world
administer national assessments periodically, as is the case in Australia,
where students are tested in grades 3, 5, 7, and 9, or Canada, where students
are assessed in grades 3, 6, 9, and 12 (Darling Hammond, 2017). Many high
performing countries, including Finland, Japan, and China, do not administer
any high stakes tests to elementary or lower secondary students (Darling
Hammond, 2017; Rotberg, 2006). The
Ministry of Education in Japan monitors the nation’s education performance by
conducting assessments to a sample of sixth and ninth grade students (Tucker,
2011). In Finland, teachers are highly trained to collect small data at the
classroom level. Finnish students do not take lengthy standardized assessments,
yet they consistently outperform U.S. students on international math and
reading assessments (Sahlberg, 2018; Tucker, 2011).
Another
commonality between these countries is that testing is not used as a form of
teacher evaluation. Assessments are given to a sampling of students and test
results are used as an educational quality control, rather than an
accountability tool for schools or teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2017; Tucker,
2011). This is in stark contrast to practices in the United States, where the
effectiveness of educators is often based on test scores. Koretz (2017)
theorizes multiple reasons why evaluating teachers based on standardized
assessments is a poor practice. Value added models are taken into account to
determine growth of a student, though students predicted scores are based
solely on a previous assessment score, rather than outside factors. Also,
teacher test scores vary from year to year, which is more indicative of class
dynamics rather than individual teacher effectiveness (Koretz, 2017). In the
nations mentioned above, standardized assessments are used to measure student
growth, and serve as gateways for students to access greater educational
opportunities. This increases student and family responsibility, rather than
placing accountability on the teacher alone (Darling-Hammond, 2017; Tucker,
2011).
The validity of standardized
test scores must be questioned when academic achievement can be predicted by
parent socioeconomic status. Longitudinal studies have found a strong correlation
between test scores and income levels (Battler & Lewis, 2002; Hedges &
Nowell, 1999; Zhao, 2018). Many states across the nation are evaluating schools
based on test scores, though studies repeatedly correlate school letter grades
with wealth (Ableidinger, 2015). Students’ school experiences vary
greatly based on geographic location and economic status. Students in urban
schools are more likely to be educated by novice teachers using more scripted
curriculum, and have access to fewer resources (Milner, 2013; Moore
& Lewis, 2012). Considering these factors, it is not surprising that urban
students were outperformed by suburban and rural students on 2017 National
Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) reading and math assessments (National Center for Education Statistics, 2018a;
National Center for Education Statistics, 2018b). Validity can also be
questioned when one examines the bias in standardized testing. Townsend (2002)
writes, “Standardized tests have long been considered unfair and biased against
students from ethnic minority and/or impoverished backgrounds because these
tests are based in large measure on the experiences of middle-class European
Americans” (p. 223).
These factors have led to
perpetual test scoring discrepancies, most notably between Black and White
students. It was the racial discrepancies in academic achievement that led to
authorization of No Child Left Behind, which urged for an increase in
accountability and tracking by subgroups. Rothert (n.d.) shares, “Statistics
show that 12th-grade African American and Latino students have reading and math
skills roughly equivalent to those of eighth-grade white students” (para. 3).
Hedges and Nowell (1999) identify possible causes of the Black-White gap in
test scores, including differences in social class, differences in family
structure, and discrimination against Black students. They compared results
from multiple standardized assessments of high school seniors, including NAEP
trends from 1971 to 1996. According to their studies, Hedges and Nowell (1999)
hypothesize, “The NAEP data suggest that, at the current rate of change, the
gap in reading achievement will close in about 30 years and the gaps in
mathematics and science achievement in about 75 years” (p. 130). While their
study mentioned the impact of social class and family structure on Black
families, they neglected issues of school reform that may increase equity in
schools. The following section seeks to determine what progress has been made
in the twenty years following Hedges and Nowell’s research.
Methodology
In an
effort to examine if racial disparities and achievement gaps have closed since
increased testing accountability, one can examine scores between multiple
subgroups on national assessments. NAEP tests are administered to
representative samples of students across the United States in selected grades.
Student performance is reported through scale scores and achievement levels.
NAEP sets three achievement levels: Basic, Proficient, and Advanced. All data
used in this article was collected from the online NAEP Data Explorer tool.
Historically, academic achievement between White and Black students has seen
the greatest disparity, which is why those races were selected for this study.
Data was compared between fourth graders and eighth graders for the following
years: 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017. The subjects (reading and math) and grades
(fourth and eighth) were selected because those grades and subjects have been
heavily tested since the implementation of No Child Left Behind. The range of
years selected correlate with curriculum and assessment implementations that
resulted from No Child Left Behind, Common Core Standards, and Every Student
Succeeds Act.
Results
There are
significant gaps between Black and White students scoring at or above
proficient in math (see Figure 1 in Appendix A). White students consistently
outperform Black students by 30 or more percentage points in each measure. The
disparity between Black and White fourth graders in math is as follows: 34
percentage points in 2005, 35 percentage points in 2009, 36 percentage points
in 2013, and 32 percentage points in 2017. Differences among Black and White
eighth graders are 30 percentage points in 2005, 32 percentage points in 2009,
31 percentage points in 2013, and 31 percentage points in 2017.
Another way to
view the data is by looking at cohorts of students, comparing fourth graders
with eighth graders’ scores four years later. When comparing the cohorts, the
Black-White achievement gap narrowed by as much as five percentage points.
However, it is also important to note that the overall proficiency between
fourth and eighth graders dropped every year with both races, as much as 10
percentage points from the 2013 fourth graders to 2017 eighth graders. Among
the eight samples of math tests, the highest percentage of Black students
scoring at or above proficient was a mere 19%, compared to the highest
percentage of White students achieving 54% proficiency.
Gaps in reading proficiency between Black and White
students are only slightly smaller than math (see Figure 2 in Appendix B). The
difference between Black and White fourth graders in reading is as follows: 28
percentage points in 2005, 26 percentage points in 2009, 28 percentage points
in 2013, and 27 percentage points in 2017. Differences among Black and White eighth
graders are 27 percentage points in 2005, 27 percentage points in 2009, 29
percentage points in 2013, and 27 percentage points in 2017. When examining the
cohorts of students, percentage points fluctuated minimally, with increases by
one point and a decrease by three percentage points. Similar to math assessment
results, the highest number of Black students scoring at or above proficient
was a mere 20%, compared to a maximum percentage of 47% for White students. In
other words, only one in five Black students are reading at what the nation
considers a proficient level.
Discussion
The purpose of
this study was to examine the impact of high stakes testing on narrowing the
Black-White achievement gap. NAEP data was analyzed from fourth graders and
eighth graders in math and reading, during the years 2005, 2009, 2013, and
2017. As evidenced by the figures above, there has been a steady increase in
proficiency levels in both math and reading since 2005. However, the
Black-White achievement gap persists, and there has been no significant
decrease in these gaps since No Child Left Behind was signed into law in 2002.
Increased testing has led to an increase in test prep materials and teaching to
the test, and four out of five Black students are scoring below proficient in
math and reading assessments. Despite efforts to close the achievement gap, the
age of increased accountability and high stakes testing has made no significant
progress towards closing the gap. Between the years 2005 and 2017, there has
been a two-point decrease in achievement gaps between fourth grade math, a
one-point increase in gaps between eighth grade math, a one-point decrease in
gaps between fourth grade reading, and no difference in eighth grade reading.
Ladson-Billings
(2006) argued that, rather than an achievement gap, a more accurate term would
be educational debt. The disparity among standardized test scores is far more
complex than education reform. One must factor in the historical debt, which is
directly tied to economic and sociopolitical debt that people of color,
particularly African Americans, have disproportionately been given from
centuries of slavery, legal segregation, and discrimination (Ladson-Billings,
2006). Considering these factors, it is a drastic over-simplification to
believe that an increase in standardized tests and accountability would provide
equity. On the contrary, it is children of color who most often suffer from
ramifications of low-test scores.
Recommendations
In order to
provide equity and increase student achievement for all races, the best
solution is for educators to adopt culturally relevant teaching. Gloria
Ladson-Billings (1995) developed the conceptual framework of culturally
relevant pedagogy, establishing the following criteria for educators: develop
students academically, nurture cultural competence, and develop sociopolitical
consciousness. This approach gives teachers the flexibility and autonomy to
examine the needs of their unique classroom, while engaging students in authentic
learning. Throughout the pendulum swings of various education reforms in the
past decades, it is clear that there is no one-size fits all program or
curriculum (Zhao, 2017). The previous sections of this article reveal that narrowing
curriculum, test preparation, and increased testing have not closed achievement
gaps between Black and White students. Culturally relevant pedagogy has
increased learning outcomes, particularly for Black students, beyond test
scores (Moore & Lewis, 2012).
Before educators
can implement culturally relevant pedagogy, they must first examine their own
cultural bias and views of society (Schmeichel,
2012). As of 2017, 80% of public school teachers in the United States
were White females. This teaching population is not representative of the
majority of students in U.S. public schools, who are now children of color
(Strauss, 2014). This cultural divide makes it all the more necessary to
address cultural bias among staff and preservice educators. An emphasis on
diversity and equity training should begin at the university level with
systemic implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy. Preservice teachers
often lack experience interacting with diverse student populations. Jackson and
Boutte (2018) write, “Close examination of many teacher education programs
reveals that the focus on issues of equity and CRP is typically superficial and
not supported by practices, instruction, curriculum, policies, and dispositions
of teacher educators” (p. 87). Muschell and Roberts (2011) provide an overview
of how preservice teachers receive culturally relevant training through a
series of course assignments at Georgia College and State University. Students
begin by examining their cultural awareness through creations of cultural
collages and autobiographies, then move into exploring social justice topics
through children’s literature and multicultural children’s literature. It is
also critical to carefully select field experiences that focus on diversity (Ellerbrock, Cruz, Vásquez, & Howes, 2016).
In
addition to preservice teacher education at the university level, districts
should provide culturally relevant training to all staff. Funds could be
reallocated from the billion-dollar testing industry to provide ongoing professional
development. Universities can offer summer programs for teachers, or provide
extended trainings to give teachers time to collaborate, engage in reflective
discourse, and write curriculum and units of study that best meet the needs of
their students. Staff members can work together in conjunction with students,
families, and community members to support student achievement. One way to
ensure teachers receive ongoing training in culturally relevant pedagogy is to
require it as a part of licensure and teacher renewal. States all across the
country determine licensure requirements, mandating teachers spend a certain
number of hours in professional development courses over the duration of
several years. Continuing education credits in culturally relevant pedagogy
should be as important as courses in math, reading, technology, etc.
Accountability
is still necessary to determine if equity in education is achieved, however,
progress can be measured in alternative ways beyond traditional standardized
assessments. One possibility is replacing testing with portfolio-based
assessments, where students demonstrate learning through a variety of tasks.
Student portfolios are evaluated at 28 New York secondary schools, and these
schools have higher graduation rates and better college-retention rates than
surrounding schools with similar demographics (Kamenetz, 2015). Another
creative alternative to standardized assessments is conducting schoolwide
inspections. In place of national assessments, Scotland has a system of
inspections where government inspectors examine student work and interview
students and staff (Kamenetz, 2015). As mentioned in the literature review
section of this paper, the United States is one of few countries that has
standardized assessments for all students, starting in elementary school. The
United States could adopt practices from other high performing countries and
reduce or eliminate standardized tests. Sampling of students could continue to
be assessed on national and international assessments to determine disparities
in scores among subgroups of race and ability.
Conclusion
This article
addressed the questions: (a) how has increased accountability through high
stakes testing impacted the Black-White achievement gap, and (b) has the
Black-White achievement gap narrowed since NCLB? Increased standardized
assessments have not generated desired results. Significant gaps of 25 or more
percentage points remain between Black and White students scoring at or above
proficient on reading and math NAEP assessments. In place of standardized
assessments, the we suggest reducing the number of high stakes testing and
focusing on culturally relevant pedagogy to best deliver instruction.
Accountability may occur through portfolio-based assessments, school
inspections, or sampling for national assessments. The focus of learning should
be on the individual child, rather than on the test.
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