Why they're left behind

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Why they’re left behind				March 8, 2003

When and if Jonah graduates from high school, he wants to be an auto mechanic. And that’s fine. We need auto mechanics, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, artists and craftsmen just as much as we need lawyers, doctors and college professors.

Unfortunately, Jonah, who comes from a poor family, started his academic career as a slow learner and has continued in that mode ever since. His reading ability is about three years behind where it should be. He’s not up to par in math and science, and he has discipline problems that sometimes cause him to spend more time in the principal’s office than in the classroom. But his worst nightmares occur when it comes time to participate in the state’s standardized testing scheme. He doesn’t like the SOLs, and they don’t like him. They don’t ask him how to replace a solenoid or what you do with a ruptured gas line. Struts and plugs aren’t even mentioned on the tests.

Heather, on the other hand, breezed through the standardized tests and graduated on schedule. She was subsequently accepted at William & Mary, only to drop out after her first year. What shattered her illusion of capability was the fact that, while she could read with no problem, she had never been taught the fine art of critical thinking. She couldn’t analyze a work of literature or deal with historical cause and effect if her life depended on it. And, while she could write acceptable simple declarative sentences, she had no sense of style whatsoever. Furthermore, she had no idea what her professor was talking about when he introduced relative pronouns, dependent clauses or participial phrases into the conversation. In short, Heather was a victim of the illusory success that comes from passing standardized tests.

Whatever led us to believe that examining students ad nauseam with standardized tests would lead to overall proficiency in our schools is hard to say. Yet the trend continues, and in 2001 the Bush administration took up the cause with its Leave No Child Behind Act.

Under this legislation, school districts are required to submit proficiency, and hence accountability, reports every year. By 2005, each state is expected to have its testing machinery in place if it intends to remain on the federal dole. The ultimate goal of the legislation is to make sure that every school reaches a 70% proficiency rate after 2004. Schools that fail to meet the standards will be subject to sanctions and restructuring.

The bureaucratic burdens this places on school districts are enormous. But what is even worse is that students, teachers and administrators are all under the gun if the magic benchmarks aren’t met. The natural result is that teachers will be forced even more to teach to the tests, lest they be held accountable for their students’ inability to pass the exams.

Furthermore, while teachers and administrators are concentrating on the fast learners in order to meet their annual goals, what happens to the 30% who don’t make the grade? As one Virginia principal said, “It’s cruel and mean-spirited, but I can’t worry about the failures. I have to aim for the 70%.” Goodbye, Jonah. Hello, Heather.

The problem is that standardized tests assume that all students learn the same things at the same pace. But that’s simply not the case. Why indeed should teachers and students be constrained by the idea that there are no gradations of learning and that academic tests are the end all of education? Aside from a basic core curriculum, why should standards be the same for all students? Why are Jonah and Heather considered indistinguishable in terms of their educational goals?

Perhaps the only glimmer of hope in this morass of a bill is the provision that allows districts to replace standardized tests with classroom assessments. And this, I submit, is the only reasonable way to go. It is only by assessing Jonah in all of his classes, including those in auto mechanics, that the concept of proficiency will become meaningful. Though the state does indeed allow some flexibility in this area, it is not enough to offset the deleterious effects of the standardized tests.

Unfortunately, our local schools will rely heavily on the SOLs to satisfy the requirements of the federal act. For the most part, classroom assessments are used for AP students, though this could change if new proficiency models are formulated. Let’s hope they are. On the other hand, all our teachers are certified in the areas in which they teach, thus fulfilling one major requisite of the act.

Both Heather and Jonah are products of our local school systems, and both have been victimized by the one-size-fits-all nature of standardized tests. Let us indeed leave no child behind. But let us not be fooled into believing that arbitrary benchmarks associated with standardized tests represent a true assessment of the characters and intellectual capabilities of each and every child. They don’t now, and they never will.