Teacher Dilemmas in a Time of Standards and Testing

Abstract

Early in his career, Mr. Plitt achieved gratifying results with students when he taught a history unit that challenged them to think and write like historians. Now, in the age of standards and state- mandated tests, would it be possible to replicate that success? TEACHERS FACE at least two dilemmas in our work to meet the academic needs of our students. The first dilemma is how to prepare our students to pass state-mandated tests without driving them away, given that many already see school as a place where they fail. The traditional drill and approach to remediation for low-performing students is boring and often ineffective, especially for students who lack motivation. Furthermore, such practices emphasize the recall of information and shortchange essential skills, such as analytical thinking or the habits of the mind that students need for success in college, in the workplace, and in their lives as responsible citizens. The second dilemma that teachers face is how to provide opportunities for at-risk students to practice critical thinking in our already tightly scheduled days while still adhering to the state-mandated curriculum. I am a teacher of world history and geography who is currently serving as the coordinator and lead teacher of the STAR (Students Toward Academic Readiness) Academy. STAR Academy is a pilot program of the Fairfax County schools and the Institute for Student Achievement designed to address the needs of students -- as defined by student self-assessment, teacher referral, or poor performance on state tests -- in grades 9 through 12. What I have discovered through my work with the STAR Academy is that the solution to both dilemmas might be to engage students in relevant, authentic, and challenging learning experiences. Engaging Students, Meeting State Standards The public has a right to know whether students are learning, and teachers have an obligation to provide it with that information. Student achievement can be demonstrated through standardized test scores or through information gathered by teachers in their work with students in the classroom. We have neglected the value of the latter by relying almost solely on test scores. For example, the use of student portfolios allows teachers to evaluate progress in writing ability over the course of an entire year. Likewise, the multiple and alternative assessments we administer during various learning activities are critical sources of information. Yet teacher research on the implications of such data for improving instruction and student achievement is often missing from the assessment debate. There are many reasons for this, including a lack of teacher confidence in we As important as state standards are, they are not all that I think my world history/geography students should know and be able to do. Still, in coordinating the STAR Academy, I felt the pressure to give parents and the community the information on student achievement that they demanded, while still teaching what I felt students needed to know. After attending a countywide staff development meeting, I saw a way to reduce the tension between what the state required and what we felt students needed to know as citizens of a shrinking world. At this meeting, Robert Marzano pointed out that much of the new testing required by states was fundamentally objective testing that emphasized the recall of information.1 One way we could help prepare our students for such tests would be to focus on the vocabulary of the standards. Research had found that students who were taught a system for learning new vocabulary did significantly better on standardized tests than those who had not received such instruction. As curriculum writers, we identified over 300 words in each of our two new world history/geography courses that we thought were essential. We felt confident that if students learned and understood these words, they would perform well on the high-stakes tests, as well as develop a more global view of history. …