Is it Acceptable to Teach to the Test?

Today, my students finished the dreaded New York State 8th Grade English Language Arts exam.

We don’t score their work until late next week, but I took note of their behaviors as they took the test, and I'm hopeful as to their scores. I saw kids highlighting as they read, and the constant rustling of papers suggested that they all remembered to pre-read the multiple choice questions before reading the passages. On the extended response sections, kids were able to take the essay prompt and echo it in their introduction paragraphs. I even saw kids using my tip of going back and crossing out words to replace them with higher-level vocab. All of this leads me to one overwhelming conclusion:

I have done a very good job of teaching students how to take a state exam. I’m not sure how to feel about that, so I thought I’d weigh out my opposing views on the topic of preparing for generalized tests.

Argument Against Teaching to the Test
I remember one of my college professors standing stoically in front of the lecture hall announcing that good teachers, those who teach content and skills, will never need to resort to teaching to a test. I doubt many teachers will willingly step forward to dispute the need to focus on teaching content and skills, so this seems like a strong argument. Most district mission statements carry the underlying intent of preparing students to become productive contributors to society, and this can only be achieved with a strong foundation of knowledge and understanding.

Argument in Favor of Teaching to the Test
Much like communism, my former professor’s words of wisdom make sense in theory, but don’t apply smoothly in practice. For example, just because I have the skills to drive an automobile doesn’t exactly assure that I’m prepared to drive a tractor trailer. Skills change depending how they are applied. It’s the teacher’s job to not only teach the skills, but to prepare students for situations where those skills will be needed. The “test-taking tips” I witnessed my students using are all things that should be put into good practice when reading/writing anything – so what if they were taught in the context of a standardized test?

My Own Conclusion
A few hours before posting this I created this poll asking my 1200 Twitter followers to weigh in on the subject. So far, only 1 person has voted. Either this means I have fewer friends than I realize, or perhaps teaching to the test is something that teachers are a bit uncomfortable discussing. Do we all do it? As educators, is test prep or dirty little secret?

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Digital Cheating

When I was in 7th grade, I watched a girl in French class get caught cheating. She had answers written all over the palms of her hands When she finished, she thoughtlessly raised her hand and accidentally showed her cheat sheet to the entire class - and the teacher.

This was in 1993.

Today, ask Google how to cheat on a test and you'll get close to 600,000 possible answers, more than 5,000 of them in the form of video tutorials on sites like Metacafe and Youtube. They range from simple solutions like writing definitions on a stretched rubberband, to intricate redesigns of Coca-Cola labels.

This is the other side of the digital coin.

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Top 3 Moments in NY State Testing

With the end of the year looming just over the horizon, there is only one obstacle left for students before summer freedom can begin – final exams. In New York, state assessments are staggered throughout the year, but the race to get through local exams got me thinking of my favorite moments in state testing. Here are my top three.


#3 - New York State English Language Arts Exam, 2005 Grade 8 Listening Section

Kids had to listen to a speech on the accomplishments of Jacques Cousteau and his impact on the conservationist movement, then write an essay. These are actual responses I had to score:

1. Ocean conservation is very important because without water we would all drop dead of dehydration.
2. The author who said "Cousteau is the voice of the ocean" was using personification. Oceans cannot talk, and the author knows this.
3. A man named Francis Plann was going to dump toxic barrels in the ocean, but Cousteau stopped him (This one is humorous, because the reading talked about France's plan to dump waste...)
4. Jacques was able to make an impact on marine life because he was a nice guy, and whales would not bite him.
5. Even though fish can't speak, it doesn't mean they shouldn't have the right to.
6. Jacques Cousteau was most famous for inventing the Iron Lung.

#2 - New York State English Language Arts Exam, 2006, Grade 8 Reading and Writing Section

By mid eighth grade, most kids are able to find subtle sexual innuendo in pretty much everything. In today's world, this means shouting “That's what she said!” after everything, but 2006 was a simpler time. They had to rely on state exams to get their jollies.

Take the reading passage from the 8th grade exam, for example. It was a poem called “Purple Snake.” The title along was enough to set some kids to giggling, but once they started reading, there was no stopping them. It was really about an old man creating a wood carving, but I doubt that's what my 13-year-olds were visualizing.

You can read the full poem here, or take a look at the highlights down below:

“It’s in there, sleeping,” Don Luis says and winks. He knows I want to feel the animal asleep in a piece of wood.

Slowly he strokes the wood, rough and wrinkled like his hands.

Don Luis rubs and strokes the animal.

Did the state education department think 8th graders would overlook something like this? Their teachers certainly didn't.

#1 - New York State Social Studies Exam, 2006 Grade 8 Multiple Choice

In addition to fretting over my own exam, I am also responsible for proctoring other state exams. My greatest moment in state testing comes from such an occasion.

I had a group of about 25 8th graders taking the multiple choice section of the Social Studies exam. Desks were in rows, and kids were spaced out as much as the room would allow. During the test I paced the room more to assert my presence than to look for trouble. Perhaps I should have paid closer attention.

After the test was over and I had collected the materials, a boy came up to my desk and asked me to check his bubble sheet. It was completely smeared with erasure marks. I asked him why, thinking that he had accidentally double-bubbled an answer thus throwing off all the following answers. Instead, he calmly explained that the boy next to him had been cheating off his paper. Rather than be the tattle-tale, he had purposely marked all the wrong answers, then went back and corrected them after the peeping eyes had gotten distracted elsewhere.

He got an 89% on the test, and his cheating neighbor scored somewhere in the 20s.

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When Every Test is Important, No Test is Important

Take a look at the car I spotted on my drive home from work the other day. I played chase with it for about two miles before finally getting close enough to snap a picture with my cell phone. Both sides of the car were also filled with bumper stickers, but the driver turned before I could get a chance to capture that as well.

Clearly this person has a lot of strong beliefs. But was his/her method of sharing these beliefs effective?

Actually, no. Until I looked at the picture, I couldn't remember a single bumper sticker on that car. It came across as so abrasive and over-amplified that the messages were immediately overshadowed by the means. These stickers were proclaiming opinions on everything from politics to religion, discrimination to gender rights. When all issues are forced to the front, they are all simultaneously at the end of the line as well.

In New York state, every student has a state assessment for each core content area beginning in 4th grade until they get to high school. Because these assessments are high stakes, teachers undoubtedly stress the importance of each one. That means students listen to someone explain that the next test is “the most important test you will ever take” more than 20 times (including LOTE exams in grade 8) before they get to 9th grade. No wonder test scores stagnate and schools fall below the yellow line (Biggest Loser reference) in the eyes of NCLB.

Where is the happy medium here? I didn't take any message from the car seriously because there were so many. But I also didn't notice any cars with only one bumper sticker. How can we collect accurate benchmark information on our students without overwhelming and devaluing the whole process?

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