Feb. 1, 2001, Don Perl, an inner-city middle school teacher, was
to administer the Colorado Student Assessment Program
test.
Instead, he boycotted.
In the days to follow, he faced adversity from colleagues, a
two-week suspension from his job and eventually a resignation from
Greeley Public Schools. Despite all of it, he knew he was doing the
right thing and has since become an advocate for children and
quality education.
“How on Earth can we assume that the most complex endeavor,
which is human learning, can be reduced to a number?” Perl said.
“It’s educational malpractice and a terrible injustice.”
Now, a Spanish teacher at the University of Northern Colorado,
Perl formed the Coalition for Better Education. The group is made
up of aspiring teachers, parents and students across the state, who
try to raise awareness about the harm of high-stakes
testing.
His solution to the growing controversy: “Restore faith in our
teachers,” he said. “Parents have the power to do so.”
High-stakes testing has long been a hot button issue in the
history of the public education system. Today’s arguments in favor
and against high-stakes testing have hardly changed.
Those in favor say the CSAP is necessary to make schools
accountable, and that it is a tool for teachers to address
students’ needs and a resource for parents to better understand a
child’s education.
“These tests tell us whether Colorado is accountable for the
millions of federal dollars we receive,” said state Sen. Nancy
Spence, R-Centennial.
Each year, about $50 million are spent on CSAP preparation,
administration and scoring, according to the Coalition for Better
Education. The Colorado Department of Education said the cost is
$18 million.
“It tests what kids need to know: Reading, writing, math and
science,” she said. “Some people say teachers are teaching to the
test only. Well I say to them ‘I hope so’ because that means our
teachers are teaching the right things.”
Those opposed say the CSAP is a one-size-fits-all approach that
minimizes teacher impact and student learning.
“There is an assumption that if kids fill in the right bubble –
a, b or c – then they understand everything about science,” said
Angela Engel, citizen lobbyist from Centennial.
Lawmakers tackle issue
Recently, Colorado legislators have been working to reform the
relevancy of the CSAP. Some want an alternative test like the ACT
to replace the CSAP in high schools. Others want to do away with
high-stakes testing altogether.
But until a decision is made about the test itself, education
advocates like Perl and Engel are working to alleviate some of the
CSAP’s repercussions. House bills 1187 and 1357 both passed in the
House last week. Bill 1187 lessens the penalties a district
receives if students chose to opt out of taking the CSAP. Bill 1357
eliminates the CSAP test in high schools.
But 20 years before No Child Left Behind mandates and bills
eliminating high-stakes testing, the country’s leaders saw a
failing education system and sought a solution.
In 1983, the Commission for Excellent Education published “A
Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform,” detailing
the growing sense that American schools were failing. The
publication sparked the first of many attempts to reform education
at local, state and federal levels. Leaders of education reform
looked to international competitors for answers and found it in the
Japanese success model of coherent curriculum and high-standard
testing.
Publishing a solution?
At the same time, editorial houses and book manufacturing
companies jumped at the opportunity to help. McGraw-Hill sent
lobbyists to the Legislature to say the solution was a test. They
said they would make the test and it would hold students’ feet to
the fire, and they would succeed. Thus, high-stakes testing was
born.
“Legislators were influenced tremendously by lobbyists from
McGraw-Hill,” Perl said. “The ruse was that CSAP testing would
measure academic growth, the truth was that the real growth would
be in the profits of McGraw-Hill,” he said.
Fast forward 10 years and “The Manufactured Crisis” is
published, aimed at exposing the hypocrisy of high-stakes
testing.
“Events in the last decade have challenged the belief that
political leaders are making well-intentioned, honest decisions
about public education,” the book’s preface said.
The book also said Americans were being misled about schools and
achievements. The education problem was not so bad, but high-stakes
testing was not helping.
In 2005, two years after No Child Left Behind became law,
another book, “The Shame of the Nation,” attempted to further
combat information in “A Nation at Risk.” The new book said schools
had turned into test-preparation centers.
“The emphasis on testing, with the resultant pressures on
children, teachers and principals, and the drastic effects that
failure on these tests can have for a school and its staff have
badly thinned out education in schools,” the book said.
Parents respond
Today, that argument is resonating with parents across the
state. Kelley Coffman, a parent in Cherry Creek School District,
will home school her children next year. She is convinced the
education she will give her children will be better than the one
they are getting.
“In CCSD, the student is treated like a test-taking,
rank-generating instrument, prepped and primed to perform
proficiently when the CSAP exam comes around,” Coffman said in a
letter to the district. “The focus of our schools is no longer our
children’s education but instead how our schools’ reputations are
affected by our kids’ CSAP scores. When used in this manner, it
becomes more a tool for real estate agents trying to sell homes in
the district to naive parents than a true assessment of how our
kids are learning, if at all.”
Principal Susan McConaghy at Flagstone Elementary in Douglas
County School District said CSAP scores are a factor when parents
choose a school district.
“We would acknowledge it is one thing parents look at, but it
certainly isn’t just a tool,” McConaghy said. “The test measures
important things. It examines what our teachers are doing in their
classrooms every day.”
But Coffman doesn’t agree.
“This exam’s faults are shrouded in a veil of deception.
Teachers are holding their tongues, principals are creatively
avoiding the topic by denying any complicity, and superintendents
don’t want their names associated with opponents of this ‘tool’
that has the ability to attract more kids to their
district.”
“Because our children in Douglas County do so well on the CSAP,
and because it’s such a public record, the scores do attract
parents here,” McConaghy said.
Not all districts score well on the CSAP, Perl said. Inner-city
schools are more downtrodden than ever before and the majority of
kids come from working-class families and Spanish-speaking homes,
he said.
“It’s an injustice to so many of them that they are expected to
do well,” he said. “And then to compare them with children who have
been surrounded by books their entire lives is educational
malpractice.”
The best teachers don’t want to work in these schools, and
parents are taking their children out of inner-city schools and
into the suburbs, Perl said. “These are all consequences of
high-stakes testing.
“These tests are harmful because it promotes labeling and
competition at the expense of our children’s curiosities and
natural tendencies to cooperate,” he said. “Parents have the power.
They love their children and they are the taxpayers,” he said.
“Once parents realize that we are living in a ‘through the looking
glass’ world, and once we reach a critical mass, their protests
will have a great deal to say about the future direction of public
education.”