Testing will continue until morale, or SOL scores, improve

While I am not the person who has the solution to Petersburg’s SOL accreditation woes, I can assure you that taking a swing at year round school (YRS) is probably not the answer. While it may be that the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) suggests that YRS may be beneficial to some students, there is a vast amount of information suggesting that YRS is no more productive than the regular 9-month schedule, and may in fact be detrimental and more costly.

JLARC states that YRS breaks the school year up into smaller bites with “intersession” breaks of about two weeks. They state that the shorter breaks increase retention for the students, but studies show that the biggest part of memory loss over the summer takes place in the first two weeks, the same amount of time allocated for each intersession break. They counter that the time between sessions can be used for remediation. But if remediation is taking place during that time period, that means teachers will be needed and transportation and food service—so where exactly is the cost savings in that?

The JLARC study showed improvement for certain groups: blacks, Hispanics, limited English proficient students, and economically disadvantaged students, primarily. The data indicates that those students improved their SOL scores faster than students in traditional nine-month programs. It says nothing at all about exceeding the SOL scores or even meeting the demands of the SOLs.

It seems to me that this is another boondoggle that the “next administration” at Petersburg is hoping will turn things around. There is no question that something needs to be done, but pulling out these outdated and unproven remedies reeks of rounding up the usual suspects.

For years, the Petersburg School system has addressed the SOL short-fall by having the students take more and more tests. They have pre-tests, pre-pre-tests, tests, post-test, post-post tests, practice tests, and test reviews. At times it seems as if the students spend so much time testing that there’s barely any time left for teaching and learning.

As far back as I can remember the adage was not to teach the test, but to teach critical thinking skills. The idea, as odd as it may seem, was that students armed with solid critical thinking skills could somehow manage to dodge through the A, B, C, and Ds of diagnostic testing armed with a toolbox full of useful information.

But now there is so much emphasis on the TEST that teachers are driven to teach the test. How best to ensure your students pass the SOLs? Make sure they see, if not the exact question, then one that is very close to jog their memories when they sit down at the computer and start clicking to fill a representative dot.

No doubt propping up those scores is important; how else can the general public feel good about the school systems they support. And as we all know, there’s nothing like a test to prove how good, or how bad, someone actually is at something. Surely, failing to pass an SOL test is an indication of bad teachers, or bad parents, or bad students, right? Well maybe it’s just an indication of an administration that is set on ensuring accountability for educating the masses by subjecting them to a test.

Let me be the first (ahem) to state that testing is not an indication of intellect, personality, or any other qualities we find in human beings. Some people, and I know this is going to be very hard to believe, but some people actually have a thing called test anxiety that makes it very difficult to get the information they know out of their heads and onto the test paper or form. Well, I am sure you would never believe something as irrational as that.

So you want scores to improve, well here are a few suggestions from the peanut gallery:

1.      Stop all the unnecessary testing. By running the students through so many practice tests it puts an inordinate amount of stress on them when they face the REAL test. It also bores them. A practice test or two is fine, but parading the students into the computer room for another round of fill in the dots every week is not very productive.

2.      Get the parents more involved with their kids. Somehow, the school system needs to get the parents, or those serving as parents, to understand the need to work with their children. This may be difficult, and in some cases it may be impossible. I am sure there are organizations in the community that are willing to provide volunteer remediation to fill the gaps for students who lack support at home.

3.      Let the teachers actually teach for a change. Don’t lock them down to meeting some prescription for what someone or some group thinks they need to cover. Sure a curriculum is a necessary road map, but let the classroom teachers find out what makes the class tick. For me, Egyptian history started when I learned about King Tut’s tomb, and a lifelong interest in paleontology started with a trip to the American Museum of Natural History and a walk past a T-Rex skeleton. Let the teachers make the classroom excursions necessary to uncover whatever it is that drives the kids to learn. Force feeding a set of standards ensures that a certain amount of material gets covered, but it doesn’t leave much room for creativity or expanded thinking. Give the teachers a chance to give the kids a chance.