Teacher explains how standardized testing is hurting her first graders

Rss@dailykos.com (laura Clawson) · Saturday, April 25, 2015, 12:39 pm
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A New York teacher has written a remarkable letter to Diane Ravitch explaining how the focus on standardized testing is hurting her students. Her first-grade students. Even though these kids won't be taking Common Core tests for two years, she writes, those tests taken recently by older students had a direct effect on the first-graders:
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You see, these tests have a ripple effect. The immediate effect is that my students who receive services such as reading and resource will not receive these services for the next TWO WEEKS since the teachers who provide these services are proctoring the state tests. They will also lose services when some of these same teachers are pulled out to score the tests in the subsequent weeks.

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But it's not just Common Core, though that's the latest in the long string of hot new standardized tests.
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 It's about the overall focus on testing as the center of how and what students are taught, which has changed education dramatically:
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When I started teaching oh so many years ago, we focused on thematic instruction and integrating all subject areas so that our students had opportunities to make connections. We taught in ways that honored many learning styles, student's individual differences and developmental stages, along with their individual needs. We understood (and still do) that each child has different intelligences and learning styles. My walls and windows of my classroom were covered with songs and poems, student artwork and artifacts of student learning. My little ones sang and read and played. We taught using literature with rich language and focused on building background knowledge. Children were encouraged to synthesize knowledge and draw conclusions using what they knew and what they were learning. We used a tremendous amount of glitter and paper and encouraged children to express themselves in ways that played to their strengths. We did projects and had lots of hands-on learning with manipulatives. I assessed through observation and working directly with students. 

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My walls are no longer covered with songs and poems and artwork. That has been replaced with "anchor charts", "I can statements" and "Learning targets". We barely use construction paper and I have not purchased glitter in 3 years. There is no time for art projects or creative expression. Children can no longer choose their learning. They write to prompts and must write different genres at certain times. Math is done on paper and manipulatives are few and far between (except when I pull out the old stuff). Reading is "close reading" and answers to questions are to be solely based on the text, without synthesis of prior knowledge.
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Assessment is daily and must be documented along with being scripted (because Big Brother is watching). Modules are scripted, teacher led and boring for little ones. We have to have 50% of text presented as informational text. Students have to write essays before they even have automaticity of letter formation. ALL THIS IS DONE SO THEY CAN PREP FOR THE TESTS. My students will take keyboarding in 3rd grade so they can take the tests online…BEFORE SOME OF THEM EVEN HAVE THE PHYSICAL HAND SPAN TO USE A KEYBOARD.

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Does this sound like the kind of education that's going to teach anyone to love learning? To value thinking and reasoning and drawing their own conclusions? But this is what the push for more high-stakes testing is doing to American schools.
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