Lessons in Assessment.

When I was in second grade at Saint Mary, Sister John Edward was my teacher. I thought she was the greatest. I remember one test that I took that year specifically. It was a reading test that I finished with great confidence. So great was my confidence, in fact, that I wrote "simple" at the top of the page to illustrate the degree to which she'd presented me with a lack of rigor.

I'm sure you can guess where this is going. In an excellent Catholic school lesson in humility I earned a C on the quiz and a comment at the top from my devout instructor that said something like, "simple huh?"

I learned several important lessons that day...

Lesson One: Don't be a pompous ass.

Lesson Two: Assessments are somewhat unpredictable.

Lesson Three: Both of the above lessons contain the word ass.

From that moment forward, I never took for granted results on a test. Even now, in my 16th year of teaching, I hesitate to make predictions regarding assessments.

This week we received from the state the scores from the Ohio Graduation Test. I teach approximately 120 sophomores who, along with their teachers, have waited with varying degrees of anxiety for two months for the scores to arrive. Even in our urban high school, most students pass all assessments the first time, but there are those not as fortunate.

Because I take my job seriously, and because I have not truly internalized Second Grade Lesson One (see above), I am deeply troubled when test scores do not meet my expectations. This is exacerbated when I have to inform a student they haven't passed with a score of 398, as 400 is the lowest acceptable score. 

This year I have also been troubled by a decline in scores to qualify for the higher ratings of "Accelerated" and "Advanced." Better than 10% fewer of my students rated Advanced this year when compared to the last two years. Having not received any specific data from the state in order to analyze the situation to inform instruction, I am left to speculate on the reasons for this decline.

I have spent the last few days compiling this speculative mental list, much of it constructed when I wake up at 2am with the awful feeling that I have forgotten something. My list includes Second Grade Lesson Two, as well as many other far reaching issues including curricular, instructional, academic, societal, and economic deterrents to success. Overall, my focus always comes back to what I could have done differently. Having reflected I will plan accordingly for the future.

Eventually, I will receive more data from the state. They will argue that this very important information can be used to "inform instruction," thus providing a vital reason for the existence of standardized tests. The real issue, as many teachers will tell you, is that the data arrives far too late, lacks specific information, and is often entirely irrelevant.

A vital component of assessment is in the immediacy and detail of the feedback. The very nature of the Ohio Graduation Tests runs contrary to this premise. It is an end, that either allows, or in far worse cases, does not allow a student to graduate. These are assessments being used inappropriately (in this and other ways).

And so why am I losing sleep over these results? Why do I even care how I am measured by a system with which I wholeheartedly disagree? Well, because I want my students to be successful. Because for the last 10 years this has been a fairly public measure of my quality as a teacher.

Maybe I'm just an ass. Simple.