Teachers' responses to test‐driven accountability pressures: “If I change, will my scores drop?”

Abstract

Abstract This study describes how seven third grade teachers modified their skills‐based reading and language arts programs because they believed students were unable to apply skills to authentic learning situations. Teachers modified their instruction by increasing the number of opportunities students had to write extended prose while studying together for extended periods of time. To evaluate the program, we examined how the teachers' instructional changes corresponded to changes in students' reading and language arts standardized achievement test scores, special education referrals, and retentions. Across the project's two‐years, teachers decreased the total number of reading and language arts assignments by 62% as they increased the percentage of their multiple day (16.3%) and collaborative (10.4%) paragraph‐level writing assignments. The language arts scores in four of the seven classrooms increased over the project's duration (when compared with the teachers' scores for the three years prior to the ...