I'm dreaming about these tests.

Well, next week is the Ohio Graduation Test. I've always sort of joked that this is the week when I earn my money. As you'd imagine, the entire American History course that I teach is based upon the state of Ohio's curriculum, and so geared toward the test. In a sense, I have spent the entire year in test preparation. The sources we use are of comparable length and content to those on the OGT. My class tests are common assessments given by every American History teacher in my building. They measure each state standard individually and were written collaboratively to look like the OGT. My students write 2 point Short Answer, and 4 point Extended Response because that is what they will write on the OGT. None of these (or a multitude of other) decisions have been made because they are intellectually sound or because they promote meaningful learning. These are decisions made to facilitate the passage of a test. We would "just teach", except that these students don't graduate if they don't pass. On the whole, if they don't pass the school doesn't rate well, the voters become disgruntled, raising funds becomes problematic, and the product suffers further. And so, as teachers, administrators, curriculum specialists, stakeholders, we make decisions.

I'm dreaming about these tests, he told me on Wednesday. I could tell by his delivery that these were not good dreams. He seemed terribly unsettled. We'd just finished a collaborative study activity on Industrialization, the first unit of the year and also the most expansive. I don't spend a terrible amount of time on review, and simply cannot review everything. Our focus is based upon timing of content, and the data I've collected from unit tests and other forms of less formal assessment. We focus on the weaknesses, and use our time wisely. With that said, I believe that this is time that could be better spent. I pointed out to my student that we were simply refreshing our memories, that his unit test scores had been fairly good and should be a sound predictor of success on the OGT. He still looked uneasy. I told him that I dream about them too. That seemed to calm him a bit. I did not tell him that I will likely not sleep much over the coming week, that I can't seem to shake back and stomacheaches from the tension, and I've been having panic attacks at odd intervals.

In a later class, later in the week, I was discussing test security protocol with students. A young lady asked, What do we do if our test materials become soaked with our tears? I imagine, like with any test materials damaged by other bodily fluids, we would seal them up and send them to the state. I'm sure she was joking. We joked about it again later, but with every joke comes a bit of seriousness. While I don't anticipate any of my students will sob their answer documents illegible, I'm sure they'll experience smaller doses of the same feelings...anger and frustration, helplessness, fear. 

I've heard a lot of people say things like, they'll have to take tests as adults...they might as well get used to it. O.K., I understand the sentiment, and wouldn't necessarily disagree that learning to perform in a stressful situation can be of some benefit. However, there is a natural level of stress that already exists in the given coursework undertaken by any student. I'm seeing kids taking a full schedule of advanced classes, participating in athletic or artistic activities, holding down jobs, caring for siblings, parents, grandparents, volunteering in their community and somehow pulling off this balancing act. Believe me, the average adolescent encounters unprecedented sums of information, demands on their time, and stressful interaction on a daily basis. These are tests. They are used to it, but that doesn't make high-stakes state assessments a logical, or sane, or necessary addition to their educational career.

The data the assessments provide is neither timely, nor accurate, nor helpful in any way except to drive future methods of test preparation.  If the goal is to provide a muddied and often inaccurate rating of students, teachers, schools, and districts based upon a limited product, then the tests are doing their job quite well. If the goal is to create a culture of assessment in American education, then we have succeeded. We have become so steeped in assessment, we're dreaming about these tests.