What purpose do standardized tests serve? That’s one of several questions Illinois state superintendent Tony Sanders and the state’s Assessment Review Committee has been exploring over the past few years.
They’ve been weighing potential changes to standardized tests like the Illinois Assessment of Readiness (IAR). It’s the test Illinois students from 3rd through 8th grade take every spring.
“I think if you talk to most school districts, they would tell you that the purpose of the SAT assessment and the IAR assessment really is just about accountability,” said Sanders, the state’s top education official. “Most districts do not utilize that test to inform classroom instruction.”
Is there data schools can get from standardized tests like the IAR that they can’t get from more local assessments?
“No, no," replied Sanders, "there's not.”
Despite that, schools use that test data a lot -- and getting the test results back to them more quickly was another issue for the review committee. This year, they did. Schools got IAR results back before the end of the school year, instead of, as in the past, in the summer.
Alissa Campbell is a 6th-grade math teacher at Clinton-Rosette Middle School in DeKalb. She says that getting their standardized test data back earlier this year was helpful.
“This is the first time I was able to sit down with students in a conference," she said, "and say, ‘This is how you did on an IAR test -- way to go.’”
She says showing students how much they’ve grown before the summer gives the test more meaning.
“I don't care if you're way down here as long as you're making growth,” said Campbell. “I don't care if you're way up here as long as you're not stopping there and still continuing to grow.”
She says it allows them to set goals, but it doesn’t influence her classroom instruction.
Tara Hammer is a 3rd-grade teacher at Carlson Elementary in Rockford. She says receiving the information earlier gives teachers more time to reflect on the data and what skills they should be focusing more on -- and the IAR does impact her classroom instruction.
“It does affect what we teach before the test," said Hammer, "and it does affect how we plan our instruction, especially in math.”
School administrators often use IAR test data for very similar planning purposes.
Jessica Nall is coordinator of assessments for DeKalb Public Schools. It’s her job to help schools understand data and use it to make decisions. She says they can use IAR data to re-evaluate how they structure curriculum.
“If we have an area like geometry, for example," she said, "that we know falls at the end of the curriculum in math for grades K-5. The end of the year unit is on geometry and then we see that our geometry scores aren't where we want them to be, we can have a broader conversation about, ‘How can we shuffle this so that we're not always running out of time to get to geometry?’”
Hammer and fellow 3rd-grade teacher Sheila Zuroske are always worried about trying to cover everything before the IAR.
“Have we addressed all the standards in English-Language Arts (ELA) and in math by that April golden day?” asked Hammer. "We never make it," Zuroske chimed in. "We never make it, as hard as we try. We have never made it.”
They can also see what kinds of questions their students struggled with and how difficult those questions were.
Administrators like Nall say schools within the same district can learn from each other too. If one did really well on a particular math standard on the test, they can see if there are any lessons for the whole district. They can also break it down more narrowly to make sure specific student groups are performing well.
Christina Miller is Rockford Public Schools Director of Accountability. She says they also compare themselves to other, similar school districts.
And she says they can use IAR data to evaluate if interventions are working. For example, last year, 20 RPS elementary schools extended the school day to focus on literacy.
“Their data does look very promising," said Miller, "so there is some high-level recognition there that we used our extended time very well."
But students take other standardized tests too -- it’s not just the IAR. For Campbell, there are other such tests that do impact her classroom instruction -- like the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test, which hundreds of Illinois schools take. They take MAP three times a year, instead of just once -- and they get that data back immediately.
It can be useful information but teachers and administrators like Campbell and Christina Miller know this data isn’t perfect. It’s just one metric. And high-stakes test scores often receive outsized public attention. They even make news.
Last year, there were headlines about only 35% of Illinois students from 3rd-8th grade being proficient in reading –- using data from the IAR.
That bothers state superintendent Tony Sanders. He says it’s misleading.
“Illinois has the fourth-most restrictive cut scores in the nation," he said, "meaning that we've set a standard higher than every other state."
It’s why he and the state assessment review committee are tweaking those levels.
“We need to right-size our standards," he said, "so that we don't inadvertently tell a whole generation of students that they're failing when the evidence shows that they're not."
Sometimes they just find test-taking really stressful. It’s what Miller found when talking to Rockford students who scored low on the IAR.
“A lot of the students, they just didn't feel comfortable answering the question that they got a zero on because they didn't even attempt [to]," she said. "It’s not because they don't have the skill or can’t answer the question. Their own confidence was an area of what the teacher needed to focus on.”
Of course, there are tons of other factors at play. Did you eat a healthy breakfast the day of the test? Does your school have air conditioning? Did you have a good night's sleep? But sometimes people just see the score and compare it to other schools, even if they’re very different.
Christina Miller says that doesn’t mean standardized tests are all bad or that local tests are all good. But, overall, she does think -- with the IAR, MAP, and other local tests -- it adds up to a lot of assessments.
“As the person who manages all assessments for the district," she said, "I will say, I do wish that we had just a little bit less.”
Jessica Nall agrees.
“Yes. I mean, think about how many tests we had to take when we were kids," she said. "I think it was one test a year -- and we do a whole lot more now because, again, from No Child Left Behind on, there's been this sense of accountability which, again, is important, but [there’s an idea] that we can somehow measure and use quantitative data to describe everything.”
Test length is also an issue. MAP testing takes students several days. Campbell says the IAR is a week and a half of testing.
“It’s ironic," said Campbell, "because you want us to teach the kids all this stuff so they can do well on the test, but then you're taking away our time to teach them, to give them the test."
For the 3rd-graders, Zuroske says, they spend even more time doing test prep because it’s their first year taking the exam. They do practice tests, and show them how questions are asked.
“It does," she said, "take a lot of teaching time out of the equation."
And, both Rockford teachers say, especially for kids that young, it gets exhausting.
“We say, okay, well, this is the IAR week, so pretty much we're not going to be teaching much else, because they're going to be drained," they said. "I feel like the length of the tests are just way too much. They would be like, ‘Is it over yet? Is it over yet?’”
Jessica Nall says the education system still clings to this idea that one number can tell the whole story of if a student or school is good or bad.
“It's something that, as an educator, has bothered me for a long time," she said, "because we've moved into this era of sort of extreme accountability, where we want to believe that there's any measure that can tell you exactly what the impact of a school or teacher was."
And, Campbell says, the most important thing is that her students know these tests aren’t perfect indicators of how smart they are. The scores don’t define them.
“There is so much more to being a successful student than being able to prove it on a test," she said. "Grades are a great component, or winning awards for being like the student of the month, because you're showing kindness or responsibility. Not everyone is going to excel on tests. I just think the way that we're measuring success for students is very pinpointed and very narrow.”
Teachers like her are in the classroom with those students every day and see students grow and succeed in ways tests will never be able to measure.
And they all agree that the school system needs to strike a balance between collecting enough data to help students and hold themselves accountable, without needlessly subjecting students to too many high-stakes tests.
