blog : October 2012
Victims of Standardized Testing:
The Adolescent Student Disengagement
10/30/2012
In this era of overemphasis on standardized testing, our teachers are under
enormous pressure. Their students simply must perform at certain levels on
standardized tests. There is no longer time, in busy academic schedules, to engage
in activities that generate deep thinking and reinforce application of skills. Teachers
have to abandon inquiry projects and, instead, are forced to devote time teaching
to the mediocre levels of expectations found on standardized tests. What I witness,
in classrooms all over the country, are students who are subjected to hours of
standardized curriculum and standardized test prep – that never ending, constant
test prep! I truly believe that this is the core of teenage disengagement with school.
There is a substantial amount of information circulating about this disengagement.
I hear it from teachers, parents and students themselves. I hear it all over the
country, from people in every socio-economic tier. The “Disengagement Dilemma,”
addressed in Jerry Diakiw’s article, “It's Time for a New Kind of High School” (http:/
/tinyurl.com/d5etsrz ), captures current concerns that schools are not engaging
and inspiring our students because of the cavernous divide between the school
environment and the “real world”.
Quoting Sir Ken Robinson’s work, he succinctly identifies the major issues of what I
refer to as the “Disengagement Dilemma.”
And Sir Ken Robinson, the noted international education expert, said in 2006 at the TED conference that we have been "trying to meet the future by doing what we did in the past, and on the way we have been alienating millions of kids who don't see any purpose in going to school."
We have shifted from the Industrial Age to the Technology Age and the latest
educational/political vehicle, Common Core State Standards (CCSS), recognizes this
shift. We teachers know, in our heads and in our hearts, what needs to be done. And
we see CCSS as a means for us to truly implement the kind of teaching and learning
that inspires a generation of students.
Of course, there are significant obstacles to achieving this goal. But it’s not
impossible. Other countries, most notably Finland, are doing what we need to do.
The way I see it, the key difference between Finland’s success and the failure of the
United States, is resources and funding. To create the kinds of teaching and learning
contexts that CCSS advocates, we need to provide the professional development and
educational resources that can truly prepare our students to be career and college
ready in the 21st century. Until this is addressed on the most fundamental level, as
a civil rights/social justice issue, I am deeply concerned that the new kind of high
school that Diakiw and Robinson advocate cannot be realized. Without dedicated
resources and proper funding, the goals of CCSS will be nothing more than a dream.
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