Tying School Accreditation to Test Scores is a Bad Idea – Unless You’re Trying to Close Schools and Give Kids a Substandard Education

It’s hard to keep up with the flurry of nonsense coming out of the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE). Some of the legislation also has me wondering: Is anyone thinking about how these decisions, laws and actions will affect children?

Where is the Grant Money?

Last week, the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT) met with OSDE to ask Superintendent Ryan Walters about what happened to the $1.4 million in grant funding that Oklahoma didn’t receive. That money was for school safety and literacy. According to reporting by KFOR in Oklahoma City, Walters blamed the loss on the previous administration. The same news outlet asked about another $1 million federal grant that could have been used for school threat assessment teams – for example, crisis intervention after tornadoes – and Superintendent Walters gave his usual non-answer of blame-the-woke-Biden-pedophile-groomer answer: “We’ve continued to see from the Biden administration who are very concerned with pushing their woke social agenda that they’ve continued to plug in everywhere.”

So, helping schools provide crisis intervention teams is “woke”? Could President Biden really be spending his time thinking of nefarious ways to slide his radical, anti-Oklahoma values, woke indoctrination into crisis teams? It takes some pretty tricky mental gymnastics to follow Superintendent Walters’ logic for turning away over $2 million that could have helped Oklahoma school children.

School Accreditation and Standardized Test Scores

Another item that lawmakers questioned Superintendent Walters about was his idea of tying school accreditation to standardized test scores. On Friday, Gov. Stitt approved this rule. I was hoping that the governor might see this for the public shaming and socio-economic-sorting that it is. Using standardized test scores for school accountability seems almost reasonable if you don’t think about it too deeply; however, there are many reasons that this is a really bad idea. As reported by KFOR, Representatives Melissa Provenzano and Meloyde Blancett questioned the impact on students with disabilities and those in poverty.

I honestly don’t believe that parents, teachers, administrators and the woke mob are against holding schools accountable. But what is the best way to do it? No Child Left Behind and subsequent school “reform” from both conservatives and neoliberals such as Arne Duncan under former Pres. Obama (Race to the Top, Every Student Succeeds Act or ESSA) have been a failure.

No Child Left Behind was supposed to bring student test scores on reading and math up to a “proficient” level, the idea being that it would force schools to get their acts together and bring all students, especially English-language learners, kids in special ed., racial minorities, and children from low-income families up to proficiency on state tests. Schools that were not making adequate yearly progress (AYP) were subject to sanctions, ultimately ending in the low-performing school being shut down, turned into a charter school or having some other take-over event.

The Failure of No Child Left Behind

Since children are human beings, and learning is complex, NCLB failed. States opted out of NCLB, which was replaced by ESSA, which is equally unsuccessful. The implication of both of these laws, while well intentioned (I guess?), is that teachers and administrators are just not trying hard enough.  It tied “success” to standardized test scores, publicly shaming students and schools. Guess what? Teaching to standardized tests, testing more and testing harder did not improve scores for struggling student populations, and I would venture to say that NCLB made school much more miserable for all children and teachers with its focus on two core subject areas at the expense of social studies, science, art, music, P.E. and more. Those students who were doing fine also had to endure the mandates of NCLB and ESSA.

Further failure was that many parents didn’t take advantage of tutoring offered through NCLB, and charter schools proved to be, overall, less successful at improving test scores in math and reading than regular public schools. The intent to improve schools is a good one, but simplistic answers don’t work with human learning. NCLB opened the door for more untested, unsuccessful school “reform,” much of it coming from foundations such as Gates, Broad, Chan-Zuckerberg and Walton.

The Purpose of Standardized Tests and Public Education

What is wrong with tying test scores to school accreditation? Standardized tests were never meant to be used to judge and punish students and schools. Small schools, schools with large populations of high-poverty students or English Language learners or students with learning issues are unfairly punished for the results of a single test on a single day. What do these students need? Before they sit down for a standardized test (which are often biased), they may need things like expert teachers, small class sizes, curriculum aligned to their culture/language/individual interests, art and music experiences, mental and physical health support. Children are more than a test score.

What is the purpose of a public education? Is it to drill and test until every child can do well on a standardized test? An impossible task. Standardized tests have their place. They can be valuable tools for teachers to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses, provided they get the results in time. Administrators can look at school populations compared with other schools and see where they need to focus attention. Teachers can make adjustments during the school year to support an individual student’s strength while looking for ways to improve weak areas. Tests are a single tool for gentle readjustments, not a hammer to the head.

While standardized tests may have a place in education, that place is minimal and should not be used to punish schools. Teaching to such tests and placing such high importance on them lead children to a predetermined outcome that is far away from the “personalized” education that many reformers tout. It’s the lowest level of learning. It erases an educator’s autonomy and allows children very little autonomy – or joy in teaching and learning. By tying testing to accreditation, the OSDE is minimalizing critical thinking. It takes time away from reading complete texts. It narrows the curriculum.

What Children Need to Learn

Children come to the classroom as individuals and as individuals in a community and individuals in a society. Some come from such dire situations that just getting to a classroom is a traumatic event. Many others are hungry, or in need of medical care. More and more children are coming to school with mental health problems. Schools in high socio-economic areas have students who typically perform well on standardized tests, but should testing be the focus of the school day? Is that what parents want for their children?

Testing harder and testing more won’t improve schools or education. It will drive more experienced teachers out of the classroom. They want autonomy to teach, not to be script readers or test proctors. Students need to learn how to be savvy about technology, to be able to recognize AI-generated information. They need to understand the tools of technology, the manipulations and dangers of social media as well as the positive aspects. They need to be able to read all types of books – those that mirror them and those that open doors – and be able to safely discuss those books and ideas in a classroom setting.

Alternatives to High-Stakes Testing

What is an alternative to high-stakes testing? Urban areas can create community schools with partnerships with nonprofits to provide services depending on the needs of the community. Here’s some exciting things happening in Chicago’s neighborhood schools using a sustainable community schools model: chalkbeat.org/chicago/2023/7/31/23811427/chicago-public-schools-sustainable-community-schools-teachers-union/ All schools can engage teachers, learners and parents to create lively, interesting and diverse experiences for all children to achieve their potential.

Tying testing to school accreditation is an easy way to close schools. Anyone who believes that schools can improve standardized test scores in a matter of weeks or even months is delusional. A teacher might be able to drill the life out of a handful of kids for a few weeks and make some improvement, but is that education? Real school improvement takes input from education professionals, true vision based on how children learn — and then it takes time and commitment to that vision.