More Than a Score (14 page)

My child is not yet eight, but when she is, I sincerely hope that she does not have to learn to think like a standardized test writer. I hope she gets to dance, and play pretend, write what's on her mind, and ask great questions. Among other things, I also hope she gets to conduct real science experiments. And while she's at it, I hope her teachers' supervisors wouldn't dare interrupt her.

Testing Nightmares

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is the third largest local after New York's United Federation of Teachers (UFT) and Los Angeles' UTLA (United Teachers Los Angeles). Many people do not know that it is Local 1 of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Chicago is where it all started. It started with teachers demanding the wealthy town fathers provide sanitary conditions for students. When the CTU went on strike in 2012, teachers, paraprofessionals, clinicians, parents, and communities across the nation found common ground with our struggle. It was a full-blown resistance to the corporate reform movement that demoralizes students, their teachers, and their families. Chicago has been at the epicenter of the corporate school reform movement from the “reconstitutions” in the early nineties, which included breaking up large high schools into smaller schools, to “turnarounds” where the entire faculty is fired and forced to reapply for their jobs. Those models and full-out school closures were adopted full scale by the federal government when Arne Duncan, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) became the secretary of education. (By now everyone knows that Duncan has never been a teacher, principal, or administrator and is not qualified in any state to be so.) His nonpartisan acceptance and promotion should have been seen as a harbinger of the disrespect for trained educators that would flourish under his administration. All those policies were prescribed punishment for doing poorly on standardized tests.

School closures have never worked in Chicago as a means to improve student achievement. While it sounded good as a part of No Child Left Behind, this concept of closing schools so that students could go to higher-performing ones has been researched thoroughly and found lacking. More often than not, students went to lower-performing schools. Many children were met with hostility because the receiving schools knew those children would lower their scores. School closures in Chicago also had the disadvantage of forcing children to cross dangerous gang boundaries. This policy drove thousands of children as young as nine or ten out of schools and into the streets rather than face an even more dangerous walk. It also directly contributed to the tragic death of Derrion Albert in September 2009, less than a year into Secretary Duncan's tenure. The policy of test and punish is an abject failure. In the following pages, I'd like to share my own experiences with testing as a student and as a teacher.

When I was little, I desperately wanted to learn to read. I craved the autonomy because my parents controlled how many bedtime stories I got. I was sure that once I unlocked that key to reading, nothing would stop me from expanding my world. There was no place I couldn't go—no friends I couldn't make—because the realm of an only child is often bathed in loneliness. My mother, trained in primary education, could have taught me to read, but she didn't. She didn't think it was developmentally appropriate. In those days, we weren't taught to read until first grade. I came home crying after my first day of kindergarten because my teacher hadn't taught me to read.

Reading developed my vocabulary. In fact, my cousins told me later in life, as far as they were concerned, I was never a little kid. In addition, if you wanted to be a part of the conversation at our dinner table, you had to be able to talk politics, current events, and geography. The maps of the world and United States were hung above the table and used to punctuate or prove arguments and were the basis for impromptu quizzes. Our meals were always a time to recall the events of the day and answer the question, “What did you learn in school today?”

My parents never thought the entire responsibility of education was on the school system. They were clear that piano, ballet, and art lessons were on them. They even bought me a German Berlitz book that contained
The Three Bears
and
Little Red Riding Hood
. From the very beginning, I knew that school was about socializing me (some might say “civilizing”), the three “R's,” and a new adventure every day. Fortunately, my parents never pressured me about grades and tests. They always asked me whether I had done my best. Of course, I never had. Those new adventures and new friendships were extremely important. I had to learn to share, to play in the sandbox without assigning architectural tasks, and to close my eyes and pretend to nap. I had to learn to stand on a square without wiggling or breaking out in song. I had to learn that some people lie, cheat, and steal. I had to learn that when I was wrong, my parents would not side with me, but that when I was right, they would find a way to deal with the problem without my knowledge.

Testing was never a problem for me. I did well on the weekly spelling tests (the hard candy for getting a perfect score was an incentive to make me slow down and pay attention instead of rushing to be the first to turn in my paper). I don't remember classroom reading tests. I remember reading groups and using the big, black pencils to write sentences on primary paper. Arithmetic (we didn't call it math then) quizzes were never my strength, but I wasn't terrible either. The first standardized test I ever remember taking were the “Iowas.” They were given every spring and I always scored way above grade level. There was a small group of us who shared our scores and we discussed what it would be like to take classes with the kids in the higher grades. Those tests seemed to have the right answer just screaming at me.

All that changed my sophomore year when I took the PSAT. I was stunned when I got my results. If I remember correctly, I got a 43 in Reading and a 39 in Math. The prediction was that I would score a 430 in Reading and a 390 in Math on the SAT. That was way before writing was added to the test. My initial reaction was that there was something inherently wrong with the test. Once the shock wore off, I was shaken. I questioned what it meant to be smart. Especially when I had been told, “You can't study for these tests.” Whoa—an entire industry sprang up to coach kids to do well on these tests, because the National Merit Scholarships were based on these scores. But in 1968, I don't know how widespread it was. I think the notion that I did badly on something I couldn't study for was problematic.

The following year I took the SATs and the Achievement Tests—in English Composition, French, and Latin. Unfortunately I don't remember those scores, but they were good enough to get me into Mount Holyoke and the University of Chicago as a junior. In the fall of 1970, I began my freshman year at Mount Holyoke. I transferred to Dartmouth when it went co-ed in 1972 and I do not ever recall taking a multiple-choice exam. I wrote in “blue books” where you had to “show all your work” and wrote papers, but I never took a multiple-choice, standardized exam for ten years. I remember having the conversation with one of my professors, Dr. Bernie Segal, one of the toughest teachers I ever had—because I was under the delusion that multiple-choice exams would be like the Iowa tests, with one screaming right answer, therefore much easier than Professor Segal's interminable blue books. He told me that in order to make a multiple-choice test in sociology valid and reliable, it would have to be so hard that people who knew the most could be penalized. That made no sense to me. He just looked at me as if I were the craziest student he'd ever had. Bernie didn't suffer fools gladly. He was demanding, rigorous, and intentionally with a reputation as the toughest professor in the department. Bernie would not let students express opinions that were not supported by the facts. He taught Durkheim, Weber, and Marx, none of which I remember, but I do remember his walking into class with his tie on backward and a shoe tied to his belt. I remember his discussing what the notion of convention was and how we break it, bend it, or work within it and why. For those students who were lucky enough to have him, may his memory be a blessing. I graduated from college, never having taken a multiple-choice exam.

By 1981, I was thinking seriously about going to medical school, and in 1983 I embarked upon my quest to retake all my science classes. This time I took the Kaplan course. I found the people running it a bit smarmy, smug, and not as helpful as I thought they should be. In addition, it was expensive, which made me think that kids who already had advantages would now have even more. The good news is that I got in to med school. The bad news is that I flunked out two years later, after never being able to master the art of multiple-choice test-taking.

In 1987, just months after “leaving” med school and the longest-ever teachers' strike, I started subbing. Having had no teaching experience or education courses, I was only allowed to sub in elementary schools, even though I was only interested in teaching high school chemistry. While I found it a challenge, I, fortunately, knew more than the kids; I simply followed the instructions the teachers left for me. I learned what I absolutely had no aptitude for—teaching pre-K and kindergarten. I found those the most mentally and physically exhausting jobs I had ever done. Add to that working three nights a week and Saturday mornings in a video store and tutoring algebra—I was quite busy. All this while taking courses two nights a week that included methods and a student-teaching stint during the summer of 1988. In order to get into the consortium summer program (six area universities cosponsored it), I had to take an entrance exam covering reading, grammar, basic math, and the Constitutions of the United States and Illinois. The only one that concerned me was the Illinois Constitution, because I hadn't even thought about it since eighth grade. I remember having a meeting with one of the professors who assured me the university would provide extra help if I hadn't passed the math. When he pulled up my scores, he seemed somewhat surprised. Not only had I passed the math portion (which had some algebra, a bit of geometry, and one trig question), I had done quite well.

Somewhere between then and 1991, CPS stopped certifying teachers and handed that over to the state. Let me explain how strange this was. For decades, CPS was the highest-paying district in the state. In order to become certified, the CPS Board of Examiners administered a three-pronged exam. The first was written, which included some multiple-choice and essay questions, a practical (depending upon what grade and subject—primary teachers had to be able to play the piano, lab teachers had to design and set up labs, and so on), and an oral focused on “How would you deal with?” situations. This rigorous exam had a high failure rate, especially for those not trained at the Chicago Teachers College. Many folks went to the suburbs or even Indiana, where the exams were easier. As a result, CPS had its pick of teachers. It also didn't offer subject exams every year. There was a lot of attention paid to supply and demand, but most exams were offered on three-year cycles. Those who didn't pass were allowed to teach, but only as Full-Time Basis (FTB) subs. There were some folks who spent their entire careers as FTBs, which froze their salaries on the fourth step of the pay scale.

By the time I started teaching, the state had taken over the certification and instituted a Basic Skills exam consisting of vocabulary, math, and writing in addition to a subject test. There were no rigorous pedagogy questions whatsoever, which I found stunning. The format mirrored that of the entrance exam to the consortium. I also thought the test was disgustingly easy. Here is a question I will never forget.

1. The auditorium is ___________ than the gymnasium.

a. biggest

b. bigger