Backlash against progress monitoring

The benefits of ongoing progress monitoring of students on essential academic skills (i.e., “power standards”) are well established. But, as Sherman Dorn notes, some school districts are starting to see a backlash from students and parents against too much testing, even when it's formative assessment designed to increase student mastery of critical content.

Here is the comment I left on Sherman's blog post:

I think one of the problems is that many school systems just throw a bunch of formative assessments up on the wall, hoping some of them will stick regarding their curriculum standards and/or year-end assessments. For example, I just spoke with a principal whose elementary school was doing SIX different reading assessments with its kids. When pressed to explain WHY each assessment was used (i.e., what information each assessment gave teachers that the other ones didn't), he was unable to articulate how the assessments were similar / different from each other. If schools wish to avoid student and parent backlash against too much testing, they need to have an aligned assessment strategy that clearly outlines when and why each assessment is being used. If schools can't do this, they deserve all the backlash they get.

Does your school organization have an aligned assessment system? Can it clearly articulate when, why, and for which students each formative assessment is being used as well as how that assessment overlaps (or doesn't) with other assessments?

Comments

[Roger Whaley]

1.

I worry that we do to much formal assessment as well. Assessment doesn't have to mean a test published by a vendor.

My district is going to give 22 tests this year.

A number of them are so we can identify who we can "save" before the high stakes state tests with some extra efforts at tutoring.

That's also a lot of time not teaching and learning. I think that if there is no follow-up on those scores that is a serious waste of money and time.

I also wonder how formative a once or twice a year testing experience is.

I am confident that the teachers working with my kids already know how my kids will do on those tests and have plans to move them to a higher level. Mrs. Clark can find a way to teach a labrador retriever how to read.

What I think would be less intrusive would be a system of embedding the assessment right into the actual work being done by students and teachers. HOW does Mrs. Clark know Mark knows how to add single digits? She has observed it. I think a checklist system for Mrs. Clark and Mark would be more appropriate than a bunch of tests. It would look like the Boy Scout Merit Badge form...

[Ewan McIntosh]

2.

I'm trying to work out what you mean by formative assessment, because what you describe is just a bunch of summative assessments. Take a look at our site, for example, which describes quite clearly how formative assessment works to track progress without involving any tests or getting in the way of learning. Assessment for learning but also assessment AS learning:

http://www.LTScotland.org.uk/assess

I've read a good few blogs recently (mostly from the US) bemoaning formative assessment, but I'm now wondering whether States in the US are pushing the right thing or not ;-)

This isn't a criticism of you - it's just a realisation that between nations there may be some very different understandings of the same technical language.

[Scott McLeod]

3.

Ewan, as usual, you've nailed the issue right on the head. Most teachers and administrators in the U.S. don't have a good sense of what effective formative assessment looks like (and, in fact, much of Wiliam and Black's research has been misinterpeted). I think the progression we see here in the States generally looks like

1) summative, yearly assessments;
2) periodic benchmark (or dipstick) formative assessments OF learning; and, rarely,
3) ongoing formative assessments FOR learning.

Most schools are in stages 1 or 2. Very few are in stage 3. The leading expert here on stage 3 is probably Rick Stiggins. He does excellent work. If you have additional resources to recommend to folks on this topic, I know educators here would love to see them.

I'll recommend the October 2007 issue of Phi Delta Kappan. There are two articles in there on formative assessment. Both are superb.

[Jeremy Aldrich]

4.

I think a lot of our summative assessments are clearly redundant, especially in the era of No Child Left Behind. They have their "big" test weeks (or months) before the course has ended, then they have another final test just to get a report card grade?! A lot of this could be solved by having the school year and the summative assessments line up with one another more closely.

Scott, the 3-step progression you describe is very true, and I don't know of any programs in my school that have gone to stage 3.

[Courtney Hines]

5.

As a special education teacher we are fed up with the testing. There is this push to keep up with the general ed class so we can take the standardized tests, with little regard to the fact that we have to do skills remediation. No one is benefiting from the standardized testing.