Standards, not standardization

FLO MARTIN

California school kids are fast approaching the month when they sit

down, No. 2 pencil in hand, to take numerous tests to prove that

they’re learning. School administrators will tremble in their shoes,

knowing that, come fall, all the schools’ test scores will become

public information, and public tongues will start wagging.

At the high school where I taught for 22 years, preparations for

these tests ranged from the comical to the ridiculous. Every

September, our first faculty meeting entailed listening to the

principal drone, explaining norm-referencing and mean, median and

mode scores. My eyes would glaze over, and my brain would go dead

trying to understand the charts. Every February, the advertising

blitz for testing started, with a barrage of announcements over the

classroom loudspeakers. We always attended a schoolwide assembly in

the gym and listened to some high school dropout who had “seen the

light” and had ended up with a doctorate in nuclear physics (wink,

wink). Even our principal got into the act, literally, by whooping

and hollering, a la Howard Dean, to get the students pumped up about

the tests. Huge poster-paper banners decorated the campus, announcing

that year’s test score goals. Every April, the kids sat for a full

week, for four hours every day, reading, computing, maybe even

thinking and then bubbling in the “correct” answers. We were obsessed

with tests.

Our California governor wants to base all public school teachers’

salaries on these test results. My questions for him and for any

voter who supports this plan would be: “Is your salary based on the

result of some multiple-choice and true-false test you took last

year? Do multiple-choice, true-false exams figure anywhere in your

job today?”

A few weeks ago, with those questions in mind, I walked over to

the Costa Mesa City Hall and took the elevator to the personnel

office. There, the gal at the counter handed me some papers. I looked

at pay ranges for all employees in the city, including fire fighters

and police officers. Salaries reflect years of service and annual

performance reviews.

I also talked on the phone with officers in charge of police

training and with several fire fighters at their stations. The

evaluation of their work is based on job performance, not on some

discrete-item test.

My first teacher’s salary was based on education and prior

experience. For the next three years, school administrators monitored

and reviewed my performance very closely. The fourth year, these

administrators decided, based on performance review, to offer me a

permanent position. From that point on, the review occurred every

other year. Teachers who didn’t meet expectations received official

notice of poor performance and ended up, somehow, out the door. Make

no mistake -- school administrations have ways of removing inferior

teachers.

Now, let’s get back to testing. Our love affair with marking

single “correct” answers has to stop. This narrow, educationally

obscene way of testing kids makes everyone crazy -- principals,

teachers, students, parents, newspaper reporters, governors,

everybody!

Multiple-choice, true-false is not real life. Writing letters is.

Reading newspapers or magazines, or even books -- that’s real life.

So is balancing a checkbook or filling out income tax forms or

interviewing for a job. Showing your kid how to change a tire is

real. Visiting a school and talking about your job -- that’s life.

Deciding which car to buy is life. Convincing your friend to join you

on some adventure is life. Keeping a professional portfolio or

leading a multimedia presentation for colleagues is life. Designing

some gizmo or starting up a company is life.

Education doesn’t stop at the end of high school or college. We

need to find out what happens to our grads once they’ve been out of

school for about 10 years. That’s the time to track them down and

talk. No multiple-choice questions then. How about: “What are you

doing these days? What kind of work are you doing? Do you pay taxes?

Do you get along with other people? Do you have a significant

relationship with someone? Do you have a family? Have you ever been

arrested or in jail?” Then, according to the results, the schools

these adults attended should receive the merit pay. School bonuses

should reflect authentic, long-term results, not short-term,

simplistic tasks

My occupation these days is observing and evaluating performance,

specifically of future high school teachers. Two weeks ago, I

happened to notice a poster on a classroom wall. The school’s mission

statement read: “To prepare students for a productive school life, to

foster democratic values, to encourage appreciation of cultural

diversity and to promote a desire for lifelong learning.” The mission

for Newport-Mesa Unified School District is “to graduate students who

have acquired the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to

achieve significant career, educational, civic and personal goals,

which will enrich our society.”

The true test of learning is performance. The better the

performance, the greater the learning. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

needs to take his focus away from the craziness of current testing.

The governor needs to be a champion for real-life change.

* FLO MARTIN is a Costa Mesa resident and faculty member at Cal

State Fullerton.