We Don't Need More Testing to Know Our Schools Stink

President Obama’s new blueprint for education reform recommends using more than just standardized test scores to broadly measure school performance and student academic growth. These proposals are especially important in allowing low-income schools to address the special challenges they face.

The conservative argument against the proposed Obama education reform plan is that it does little to promote school choice. I am a firm believer in school choice, but I work in a large urban high school because kids here are the ones who need the most help and the most care. So, in my eyes, the Obama blueprint for education reform is good for two main reasons. First, it is less punishing and devastating to students struggling to earn the required "passing" measure on mandated state exams. Second, it more broadly measures a schools' performance beyond standardized test scores, something that is especially important in low-income schools.

Evaluating students for academic growth, instead of labeling as a "passing" or "failing" student, will allow educators to tailor lessons and curriculum to meet the needs of students. I currently have a student who is such a gifted poet that his work is splashed on city buses. However, he has been unable to do well enough to "pass" the mandated state assessment in English; therefore, he is wrapped up half the day in very dull scripted curriculum courses trying to figure out ways to crack tricky standardized question stems. Excited every time he is given the smallest amount of freedom to do something with regards to creative writing, his demeanor changes enormously when given yet another packet of long reading passages with questions attached. I can't help but feel we are deadening this student's interests in school and life. He hates school, and rightfully so. He is not alone whatsoever. When we try to standardize curriculums, it limits the amount we are able to do to reach students of all abilities and gifts. Schools should be doing all they can to expand student's minds - it's hard to argue that standardized reading passages do this.

In the inner city especially, schools need to be measured on things that go far beyond a test score. I'm the last person to ever make "excuses" for my students, but I'd have to willingly blind myself to not see their struggles. Too many of my students have adult responsibilities -- from taking care of siblings to holding down full-time jobs after school and into the night. Pretty much all of them rely on public transportation to get to and from school. Many struggle with the effects of entrenched poverty -- hunger, malnourishment, poor medical care and more. Does this mean we as teachers coddle them and go easy? Of course not. But it does mean that a lot more goes into this job than opening up the curriculum to so and so page in order to teach the skill to pass the test. Students come to our schools with many, many more and different needs than wealthier counterparts from more privileged areas. Most conservatives don't like listening to these sob stories, but, oh well - it's reality.

So, as Obama's blueprint says, it is necessary to evaluate schools based not only on test scores, but also on things like attendance, graduation rate and learning climate. School climate is arguably the most important thing to foster in a struggling school. I'd say that climate in many ways determines test scores, so to judge a school only on the score makes little sense. Kids in a poorly run school don't need a test to tell them that their school stinks.

Of course, school climate can only be improved and revolutionized if entire staffs and administrators are on board. This is something that no policy from Washington can ever address. Mentioned often these days in school reform debates is the need to "fire bad teachers." It is one of the ways Obama plans to deal with failing schools. Newsweek devoted an entire front page to it the other week. Everyone seems to know what a "bad" teacher is, but few actually talk about what can or does make a good or great teacher. All I know is that as the bell rings to start this last period, I'll "teach to the test" again, because that's my job. That, and much much more that is immeasurable.