An ongoing debate on testing

In case you missed, a guest editorial by Castroville teacher Paul Karrer inspired a spirited debate in the pages of the Herald and with some of my readers. In his piece published Aug. 31, Karrer said teachers are cheating because high-stakes testing are pushing them to do so. He cited some of the ways teachers fudge with the numbers.

Principal Mary White -- a very nice lady, very enthusiastic about her students --almost had a conniption after reading the article. In her own response to the Herald, White called on Monterey County Superintendent of Schools Nancy Kotowski to enquire about his accusations for Karrer to provide names of teachers, principals and schools that have been found of cheating.

Ah, the joys of debating ideas. With all due respect to Ms. White, I'm going to side with Gary Kreeger, a Del Rey Oaks reader who was siding with Karrer.

Karrer was not talking about local teachers, or principals or districts. He was talking about what's been happening in the country for years. Some of what he alluded to have been scandals of major proportions -- like the cheating in the Atlanta Public Schools, where an investigation uncovered that 178 teachers and principals in 44 public schools were found of routinely changing their students' test answers to make them appear as if they were improving. And the increasing push around the country to tie teacher's pay to their student's performance. If your job will be determined by how many of your students do well, wouldn't the teachers be "motivated" to make sure their students' test scores shine?

I'm also going to side with Ms. White. I've watched test scores in California and Monterey County steadily increase, no sign that there's cheating going on -- except for the increased use of California Modified Assessments, which is not cheating per say, but it's a way to fudge the numbers, as statitician Doug McRae is fond of saying. More on that for another day. There's no rampant cheating in California that's been uncovered.

McRae, an expert on testing, likes to say that tests have a place. True: if you want to get into grad school, you better shine on your GRE. So children need to learn how to take them. And, if the tests were used solely as an evaluation method -- not to ridicule or punish -- maybe they would be more palatable. That's what this former teacher writes in EdWeek. But what Karrer was talking about, what makes many teachers upset, is that the tests have become an end, not the means: they're used to label schools as failures, soon they could be used in California to measure teacher's performance, and in this era of budget constraints, children are left with endless hours of drilling and not enough hours of developing their analytical skills. These are the "incentives" that are pushing some teachers -- not locally that we know of -- to cheat.

Respected educator Larry Cuban calls it a "bias towards numbers in judging teaching" approach. Schools are applauded if they gain certain amount of points in the API, they're deplored if X percentage of their students don't perform proficient. But how do we measure a teacher who listens to his/her students with respect and kindness? Who lowers himself to eye level and explains to a second grader why it's wrong to fight during lunch? A teacher who spends nights and weekends grading papers? A teacher who models for their students how to be a decent human being?

That's what Karrer is talking about.