Brief musings on testing

So I mentioned the EOGs in my last post. They're the high-stakes tests administered by the state of North Carolina that are taken in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. Our principal informed us yesterday that our school's composite scores from last year were at 57.6%. This may seem strikingly low, but that's up from the year before, when they were at 49.9%. It's a huge gain in one year, and everyone at the school deserves to be commended for the exceptionally hard work it took to get us to where we are. But still, a composite of less than 60% is a staggering number.

EOG results impact the school, but more importantly impact the child, as well. A child with low EOG scores is much more likely to be retained, and data shows that students who have been retained even once are much more likely to drop out before receiving their high school diploma (about 3400 students dropped out of the Charlotte Mecklenberg Schools last year). Students who drop out are multiple times more likely to join gangs, commit crimes, and live in poverty. 68% of North Carolina's prison system are inmates without high school diplomas.

The same child with low EOG scores is unable to be accepted to any of CMS' many magnet middle and high schools, where they would have the chance to receive both the individualized attention and expectations of academic excellence that they so desperately need. They become stuck in a cycle of academic underperformance, no longer expecting out of themselves that which they have the capability to achieve.

While everyone knows that teaching to the test is not best practice in education, we have to prepare these students to take the state tests. We have to give them rigorous assessments that build their critical thinking skills, their test-taking endurance and perseverance, and their arsenal of problem-solving strategies to tackle questions that may initially stump them. We have to invest students in the importance of the tests, and teach them why they should care about the EOGs. We have to differentiate our instruction to meet each student where they are and get them to where they need to be.

The top 3 highest performing schools in Charlotte averaged a composite EOG performance of 87%. That's a 30 point-gap between my school and the best schools in Charlotte. To close that gap 24% (one of my class' big goals), our scores need to improve 7.2% this year.

Looks like we've got our work cut out for us.

"For these are all our children, for we will all profit by or pay for what they become." -James Baldwin