Too much testing can be harmful
Testing and accountability have their limitations, and when a school raises its test scores, the story behind that success might be different than you imagine, according to Linda Perlstein, the author of Tested: One American School Struggles to Make the Grade.
Perlstein was the keynote speaker at the School Leaders Luncheon March 31, sponsored by American School Board Journal and Sodexo School Services.
Tested is the story of a once low-performing Maryland elementary school that significantly raised student scores on state tests. Perlstein spent months in the hallways and classrooms, interviewing students, parents, teachers, and administrators to uncover the consequences of the single-minded focus on raising test scores.
The children she wrote about lived two miles from the harbor in Annapolis, but didn’t know they lived near a body of water. When they took a field trip to the U.S. Naval Academy, they thought they were in New York City.
Teachers need to show students the world outside their school, she said -- not because it will lead to higher test scores, but “because it’s unjust not to.”
Heavy emphasis on teaching to the test leaves little time for enriching activities to get these students to the same level as their middle-class peers.
“Sometimes the best decisions you can make are not based on numbers on a piece of paper,” she said. “You can’t stop doing the right thing because you don’t have the data to prove to outsiders that it works.”
Perlstein, the public editor for the Education Writers Association and a former Washington Post reporter, encouraged school leaders to eradicate the “culture of fear” in schools today.
People in public education are afraid to talk, she said. “People are afraid they will get fired if they are honest about what works and what doesn’t work in their classrooms.” She urged board members to “advocate for openness.”
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