What did you think? What were potential accessibility issues? How would you change it?

          As a special education teacher, I value the belief that students learn and express themselves differently.  I constantly amazed by the current expectations in education that we as teachers are responsible for differentiating instruction on a daily basis, yet the standardized test itself is not differentiated.  “Pursuant to Section 504, the aids, benefits and services must afford individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to obtain the same result, to gain the same benefit, or to reach the same level of achievement.” (Pg. 2)  How do we measure achievement?  I have yet to see a test that truly measures a student’s yearly growth, rather I’ve seen tests that tests a students test-taking skills.  The context is often completely irrelevant to our students lives and texts on the ELA exams are often uninteresting and engaging.  My students enjoy reading, but I see a clear slump in engagement in the four weeks leading up to the exams when we have ‘test prep’.  

          “Testing accommodations provide an opportunity for students with disabilities to demonstrate mastery of skills and attainment of knowledge without being limited or unfairly restricted due to the effects of a disability.” (Pg. 3)  Expecting all students to jump through the same hoop is absurd, especially considering accommodations often fall short of bridging the gap for our students with disabilities or newer English Language Learners.  Although test access and accommodations attempts to meet the needs of students, I find that it often falls short as ideal implementation is often nearly impossible.  At the school that I teach at we have over 400 students in testing grades.  Our school is at capacity, and many of our classes are close to state and city limits.  We have large English Language Learner and special education populations at our school.  I would love to give students the opportunity to take the exam over a longer period of time in terms of giving them a week, rather than extended time within the typical three day testing period.  Unfortunately, due to limited staff, space and the large demand of special settings or accommodations, this is not currently an option utilized at my school.  

          I completely support the push to raise expectations and to work to ensure that all students are given equal opportunities to succeed.  I fail to see how these exams truly work to inform our instruction.  We lose so much instructional time in preparation and in the grading of these exams, it seems like a percentage or point system is not a fair trade-off.  Perhaps if the tests were objective and valid enough to be given back to schools, then we would be able to use student work and responses to inform our instructions.  Sadly this isn’t the case.  “The Grades 3 through 8 tests in ELA and Mathematics will help schools to identify students for whom they need to provide additional academic assistance in these subject areas.” (Page 5).  I am still not quite sure how a score 1-4 helps to know what skills students are lacking.  The ELA exam does kindly break down literal versus inferential percentages and points, but in my experience literal understanding is almost always needed before students excel in inferential understanding.  Thanks for giving us the point breakdown to solidify that conjecture?  I spent three days last year grading the ELA exams.  Luckily our school splits the grading and divides it among two teachers for each slot, otherwise I would have missed over a week with my students.  It is shocking how subjective the grading process is.  After having witnessed and experienced grading the state exams, I am appalled at the resources spent and wasted on these exams.  Wouldn’t portfolios and looking at student work over the course of the year be much more beneficial?  

          Our students are at a disadvantage when it comes to the state exams.  The idea that “the conditions of the test allows students with poor reading skills to show their skills and knowledge on tests measuring content areas such as social studies and science and allows students whose disability affects their ability to calculate to show his/her ability in problem solving and math reasoning without being hindered by their inability to calculate” (Page 4), doesn’t even make sense.  Content knowledge is often gained through reading and literacy activities at any grade level.  Difficulties reading isn’t alleviated through testing content knowledge.  Perhaps students may receive partial credit for their problem solving strategies and reasoning, but inaccurate computation drastically decreases their scores.  At the end of the day, whether an assessment that is being used across an entire grade, school, district or state, that allow little room for creativity, individuality or differentiation, in my opinion remains flawed regardless of accommodations.  Are these exams worth the time, money and effort to create, administer and score?  Are the results and information gathered from the exams worth the overall expenditure in both fiscal and personnel resources?