Speaker: Student Test Scores Don’t Tell All

By Kristina Andino, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Apr. 7–IOWA CITY — Judging how well teachers and schools are doing their jobs based on student test scores is not working for American schools, a speaker told about 100 law students, professors, scholars and others at a symposium at the University of Iowa’s Boyd Law Building on Friday.

Federal government control of schools has increased over the years, said Liz Hollingworth of the UI College of Education.

The philosophy of Margaret Spellings, U.S. secretary of education, is that “if you test it, it will be taught,” Hollingsworth said. That approach assumes “teachers on their own aren’t doing what’s best for kids,” she added.

She argued that the federal government has good intentions but has created unintended consequences through the No Child Left Behind Act, which uses a “carrot and stick” to motivate teachers to raise students’ test scores.

However, “the whole idea that somehow it’s (the) teacher’s fault” when a student is a slow learner is demoralizing to teachers, Hollingworth said.

Children who are black, American Indian, Hispanic or low-income tend to lag behind their peers on test scores, but blaming teachers for doing their jobs poorly isn’t the answer, she said. The issue of poverty, for example, is best addressed together with other social institutions, she said.

Because of No Child, highly qualified, experienced teachers are leaving schools in lowincome areas at the same time those schools are faced with fewer financial resources, Hollingworth said.

On standardized tests, “we really are not measuring whether or not (students) learned what the teacher taught,” said Hollingworth, who holds an appointment in the Iowa Testing Programs.

Yet the testing industry is booming under No Child, at the expense of building maintenance, she said. As much as $5.3 billion was spent on state testing programs from 2003 to 2007, Hollingworth said.

Schools are held accountable only for students’ reading and math performance, so schools are spending less times on other subjects, Hollingworth said.

“We’re not where the people who started No Child Left Behind probably thought we would be,” said fellow speaker Tom Narak, superintendent of the West Des Moines school district.

He played a video by Tom Chapin to sum up his assessment of the situation. It features the guitarist strumming out a peaceful tune to put a child to sleep.

But this wasn’t typical campfire music.

“You don’t need to know what’s not on the test … There are jobs at stake,” Chapin sang. Students who grew up are now talking heads yelling at each other, the song goes, “’cause rational discourse was not on the test.” The 12th annual symposium, called “No School Left Behind: Providing Equal Educational Opportunities,” was presented by the Journal of Gender, Race & Justice.

Contact the writer: (319) 398-8431 or kristina.andino@ gazettecommunications.com

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