PSSA Prepping

Key quotes from an article about a PA school preparing for Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) and some analysis on the practices.

• "We held a parent informational breakfast about the PSSAs. We will do it again in February." Administrators' and parents had to take time out of their day to go to this. And how does this work for a family where both parents or the single parent works? Surely many of those children are in demographics that perform poorly on tests, yet the parent(s) can't even get this little help because the meeting is at such a time that makes it impossible for them to go without missing work. I think they're going to choose money to feed and clothe and shelter their children over PSSA tips.
  
  
• "Equally important is to make sure that your children are attending school. As we go through the PSSA coaching books at this time of year, your child is missing crucial test-taking tips and advice with each absence. Scheduling appointments at this time of year should be avoided if at all possible." Evidence they are not only teaching to take the test but also trying to tell the parents what to do with their children.
  
  
• "By nature, we are prepping students for the PSSA throughout the school year. We incorporate PSSA vocabulary and skills into daily lessons. Our assessments mirror the way in which the PSSA questions our students." How does one incorporate PSSA vocabulary? Is there a list in study guides like for the SAT? Also, their tests are testing students the same way the PSSA does. Testing students in only one way does nothing to help their critical thinking skills and problem solving. It teaches to answer a question in one way and one way only.
  
  
• "When we returned from Christmas break two weeks ago we began a countdown to the test and teachers pulled out PSSA coaching materials at all tested grade levels."
  
• "We incorporate daily bell ringers into our classrooms. With this in mind, we hit math and reading anchors to continue to familiarize our students. A social studies teacher may ask the students to correct the grammatical errors in a sentence based off of a topic they were studying. Or they may ask for certain antonyms or synonyms of words they are studying. We'll also do things such as asking students to figure out their own percentages based off of a score on their exam." Cross-curricular techniques and concepts are very important and should be included by a quality instructor, but it should happen organically with complete relevant to the subject matter at the time, not a forced occurrence. If these teachers wanted to teach reading and math all year long, then they would be reading and math teachers.
  
  
• "Throughout the year, we are always discussing PSSA testing strategies along with any type of testing going on." & "We provide direct instruction on test-taking skills." There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the strategies taught, e.g. elimination of answers you know to be wrong. That is how decisions are made in real life. The problem is the reasoning behind the strategies is always geared towards, "You have to answer the question, so here are some ways to get it right" instead of a more friendly "If you don't try, you'll never know if you were right." If one is looking to buy a new brand of chips at the supermarket, can he possibly know which kind he will like if he's never eaten them before? Of course not. He can eliminate the flavors he knows he will not like or brands that use artificial ingredients to be better equipped to make a selection he will enjoy, but it is not certain. But there is no pressure to get the right chip on the first try. Instead, there is a sense of adventure at trying something new and uncertain, a creative thought process, and a learning experience that makes an even bigger impact if he gets it wrong. These are important qualities that will continue to lack in education if students are never allowed to try just for the sake of trying.
  
• "We also do a PSSA Prep Celebration. The day before the actual PSSAs, we will hold a large assembly with [the] Superintendent as our keynote speaker. We talk about the importance of the exams. Cheerleaders do cheers and we get excited for the challenge." So, more time is being taken away from instruction to get students "excited" for the tests. Some schools even go so far as to spend money to get students pumped up. Money that they keep claiming they don't have, yet it appears for things like this. And why is this necessary? To try to interest older students who know the tests are a waste of their time, or to relieve younger students who feel the immense weight of these tests on their shoulders.
  
  
• Practice tests also play a role in the preparation. "We prep the students prior to PSSA testing. Leading up to the tests, we take the 4-Sight exams which are in correlation to the PSSA. We do these four times a year." When are students not being tested in broad swaths of time? When is there time for individual class assessment by the teacher? When is there time for subjects that aren't being assessed for NCLB?
  

Source: Times Observer

$40M spent on testing contract could have served DPS better

Todd Farley, author of "Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry" and former employee of a company owned by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt talks about his experience visiting the Detroit Public School system. Readily apparent are the amount of time and resources spent on the standardized assessment of students by people who do not know what is going on in that community.

"DPS Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb is attempting to solve DPS' $327-million budget shortfall by closing nearly half of Detroit's schools, increasing class sizes in the remaining ones to as high as 60." Yet the school had just completed a 15-month contract worth nearly $40 million, more than 12% of DPS' entire budget shortfall, for HMH's "managed instruction" in reading and math. Where did those millions go? "Some of those millions were used to pay for the tests I helped slap together (mostly recycling passages and questions that had been used many times before) and to sponsor my travels to Detroit." This included meals where "they [the company employees] nonetheless reveled in wine or cocktails and big, delicious steaks. It was a great night to work in standardized testing."

One might think, okay, a couple employees having a nice dinner, that's not so bad. But it wasn't a couple. At the school where teachers were recruited to put their stamp of approval on the tests "there were nearly 20 of us standardized testers on site that day (test developers, senior test developers, supervisors, project managers, customer service reps)...there were nearly twice as many of us than them."

And what would these people, "who had jetted to Detroit from Chicago and New York (and Minneapolis and Missouri and New Mexico)" be able to offer these teachers? Very little. Because "when some of the teachers told us about the conditions they experienced each day (a lack of textbooks in classrooms but a surfeit of students, metal detectors at front doors, cars stolen right out of school parking lots), Mr. Farley's feeling only confirmed the teachers' suspicion that these testers "had no idea what went on in the Detroit Public Schools and, frankly, that we had little to offer. "

Mr. Farley summed it up nicely: "I'm still hard-pressed to see the benefits of sending those millions to Boston to line the gilded coffers of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Wouldn't the city of Detroit have been better served by spending that money to keep its schools open or to hire teachers, coaches, staff or security? Isn't all of that a better way to give the city's kids a chance to succeed than paying tens of millions for the 'expertise' of a bunch of people who will have no more than cursory interactions with the city of Detroit? Wouldn't that money have been better spent on something other than buying me dinner?"


I think any of us with some sense would call a resounding "YES!!!"

Source: Detroit Free Press