Regarding the article, “State swaps in new exams”: For those who took the time to read the article, you might have thought that the writer wasn’t being very clear or that she didn’t know what she was talking about. As a 30-year teacher, I, too, had some concerns. However, it is not the reporter who is unclear and scattered … it is the state of Washington! For 18 years, once the Washington Assessment of Student Learning started, we have lived through one major change after another. Once we finally get settled into a new set of standards, and get students prepared for the tests, the state once again turns everything over. Suddenly we are thrust into another set of standards and testing.
As a teacher, it feels impossible to try and keep up with all of these changes no matter how hard we try. I started as a strong advocate of the new Common Core standards. I still believe higher standards are what we need for our students to be career and college ready. However, after watching my students struggle through the first assessment, in which several of my 12-year-old students are now on their fourth day of attempting to complete the test (1?½ hours spent on each of those days!) I am left with a great deal of questions regarding its length. During these weeks leading up to testing, our district has been given nearly daily changes on some aspect of what or how we are to go about administering the tests. Throw in recently purchased technology that the students have had minimal amount of practice on (yes, all of the testing, third grade and up is completed on laptops, with little or no keyboarding experience) and there are already too many variables working against the kids.
For those of you who are not teachers, would you want your evaluation tied to such a test? Would you want your evaluation tied to something that is set up to fail, and you have little to no control over most aspects of the testing? As a veteran teacher, I would never give such a test to my students and expect them to do their best. It is just not good teaching. So, why is the Legislature confused about why we simply cannot allow this testing to be tied to our evaluation and pay? I only wish they would spend even a day around any school in the state and see what testing is really like.
Debra Howell
Granite Falls
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