OK, so in the recent months I have run into a lot of chatter about testing.  But none of it brought anything but pity and disgust at the misinformation.   Until I watched the John Oliver clip.  When a comedian, of all people, finally nailed it.  Testing in itself may not be bad, it is the way that we use the information. So why do we have this gag reflex for testing?  The source of concern seems to be that the students are being unnecessarily burdened for no gain.  I believe the reason we feel that way is that standardized, normalized testing has traditionally been done for someone else.  Whether it is accountability to the state, the district or someone else, it seems we are being asked to validate our work through testing.

Not to go all “math geek” on you, but I mentioned earlier the terms normalized and standardized.  These are qualities typical of state and high stake testing.  Standardized indicates that the test is administered in the same scripted manner to all students.  Tell them this, give them that, don’t tell them this or show them that.  

Normalized is a little bit more complex.  Remember the bell curve?  Normalized tests are constructed by design to give a bell curve distribution of scores, otherwise it would not be normalized.  The average is set AFTER the students have completed the test. Our politicians,  in their infinite wisdom, all but declared the bell curve did not exist on a normalized test when it set the goal as part of the No Child Left Behind legislation that each student should eventually score average or above.  Obviously there wasn’t a mathematician on that committee.  No matter how much the student’s scores increase, there will always be a set percentage of students who fall into below and above the average that was set by the results of the test they just took.  To no ones surprise, this lead to pretty much every school failing to meet this mathematical impossibility. So, it is no wonder that assessments tend to lead to a less than positive response.

In the John Oliver clip we learn of a teacher who was asked similarly to get a child to achieve a mathematically impossible score. Could no one recognize this was impossible?

The real problem is that we don't have enough training and support to learn how to effectively use the information. Teachers only see it testing as a measurement of their worth, but that is because most often that is the only thing it is used for.

To quote one charter school's philosophy on using test scores: 
"Teachers and schools are only as good as their follow through and hustle. Our test scores cannot be an end point. Instead, they are opening a conversation about what we did well, where we need to grow, and things we need to do differently. We are examining every standard, every question and every scholar’s work closely. We are wrestling with the facts about how we did and what it means about our work. We are looking honestly at areas for improvement and celebrating our successes. We are working to follow through for the good of our kids and teachers. We know we need to hustle"

We need to send the same message to our students, that the work is valued and that the students can ultimately benefit from the results.  Otherwise the carryover from the PARCC outrage will undermine any attempts to utilize online testing in a formative way. 

 We Got our Scores, Now What? - Alma del Mar. (2014, September 26). Retrieved May 6, 2015, from http://almadelmar.org/got-scores-now/  
YouTube. (2015, May 3).

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Standardized Testing(HBO) retrieved from htttps://youtu.be/j6lyURyVz7k