Every year, we see a flurry of ISTEP news reports (see, e.g. here and here and here) telling how various schools did on the tests, whether they did better or worse than last year, and how they did compared to the rest of the state. You get the sense that these scores are a major source of anxiety and concern for most involved.
Which is one of the reasons I enjoyed seeing Rocky Killion, Superintendent of West Lafayette Schools, comment on ISTEP scores:
“Comparing ISTEP scores won’t make our education system better,” he said. “There’s much more to all of our public schools than these scores.”
As a superintendent of a public school system that routinely performs well on these tests. Rocky’s in a fairly unique position to offer this critique. No one can accuse him of sour grapes or of making excuses for poor performance. In any event, the ISTEP story is an easy narrative for the reporters. It reminds me a little of the horse race narrative you see way too often in politics where the substance of the campaigns and the policies are glossed over in favor of reporting on how the candidates are doing in the polls.
For my kids, I see the ISTEP as a waste of time. Because I’m a doting father, I’ll brag a little bit. They’re going to pass every year, and they’re going to pass by a lot. If they had their testing days back and if their teachers didn’t have to concern themselves with the administrative hassles, I daresay the quality public school teachers my kids have would have that much more freedom to teach my kids in useful ways.
Having seen the craziness that goes on with ISTEP testing over the years, I believe the NWEA testing was a much better indicator of the individual students progress.
When my son first started school, it was at the end of August. ISTEP was immediately done in September. ISTEP scores were falling. Solution, back school up 3 weeks in August and spend those 3 weeks basically studying for ISTEP. If you are going to specifically study for this test, does that not skew the results?
Now that ISTEP is in the Spring, why do we start school at the beginning of August? Oh yeah because the kids won’t have as much time to forget what they learned last year. Well if the “pop quizes” that my sons teachers gave them the first day back to assess what they had remembered, with that logic, these kids need to stay in school all summer long.
Maybe instead of these Mega High Schools with over 30 klds per class we need to go back to smaller schools with better individualized attention. Oh wait how would we ever support our sports programs, never mind……..
Sorry for the Rant folks.
Excellent. I wish more parents like you would speak up, Doug. Too many believe this issue is someone else’s problem.
Fourteen years ago I was interviewing then-state Supt. Suellen Reed and complained to her that my sons’ schools were spending too much time on ISTEP test prep. She patted my hand and told me that my boys would do well and I shouldn’t worry.
That wasn’t the point I was making. I knew my kids would do well. I was angry because they were wasting time in school reviewing material. They weren’t learning anything new.
This obsession with testing and test scores has only grown because the so-called education reformers, both Republicans and Democrats, know that test scores are an effective way to beat up on public education. If you follow the money, it’s clear that profits are the goal.
I’ve complained in my own newsroom that we shouldn’t report test scores as if they were baseball standings. I’m also appalled by the “top and bottom finishers” we continue to identify for readers. We would never do that with high school track meet results.
Rocky Killion, the Klink family and others in the West Lafayette school community have done a tremendous service in speaking up through their work on the documentary.
I hope the testing mania ends before your kids graduate, Doug, but you should be happy to know they are enrolled in a school district where learning, not test scores, remains the focus.