Accountability?: Exploring the effects of external testing on teachers.

1. Accountability?: Exploring the effects of external testing on teachers. Presenter: Dr. Margot Filipenko Department of Language & Literacy Education University of British Columbia.

2. Purpose Early childhood educators are torn between appropriate practice and mandated curriculum. Many teachers struggle with the strict guidelines, and with the curriculum they are mandated to teach that is often misaligned with their personal philosophies of how young children learn best (Adcock & Patton, 2001). The purpose of this presentation is to examine what research shows about the effects of standards and testing on teachers, teaching and the teaching profession.

3. Shape of the Day • Standards and Testing • Pressures on teachers • Influences of high-stakes testing on Teaching and learning. • Teachers perceptions about testing. • What have teachers lost in the Time of Testing? • Phonemic awareness: A case in point. • Activity.

4. Standards and Testing The 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk is frequently identified as the impetus of the focused march toward accountability and high-stakes testing. The report recommended: • strengthening graduation requirements; • setting higher standards for both schools and colleges; • increasing the amount of time students spend engaged in learning tasks; and, • Improving teaching through higher standards The drive for accountability was on.

5. During the 1990s, educators worked tirelessly to perfect descriptions of standards at every level and content area. • Testing appeared to be the logical approach to identify students who did not meet set standards, as well as the teachers of those students. • Thus, through developing higher standards and tests for measuring the degree to which students met those standards, there was a system in place for holding students, teachers, and schools accountable for assuring that all students met expected standards. (Barksdale-Ladd & Thomas, 2000)

6. Pressures on Teachers 1. Pressure on teachers to ensure high scores is constant. • Direct sources of pressure include: • Statements made and memos sent to teachers by administrators; • Conversations and meetings with other teachers where testing was a topic; and, • The media.

7. “It’s awful. I just cringe every time I walk in the teacher’s room because these tests are the only topic of conversation in there, and it raises your anxiety just to hear how scared everybody is. A few years ago, I really loved teaching, but this pressure is just so intense …. I’m not sure how long I can take it.” (reported in Barksdale-Ladd & Thomas, 2000 p. 390).

8. Finally, publishing test scores with schools’ rankings in local newspaper, thereby pressuring teachers to produce high test scores, causes teachers: “anxiety, shame, loss of esteem, and alienation.” (Barksdale-Ladd & Thomas, 2000).

9. Influences of high-stakes testing on Teaching and Learning. • Teachers tend to neglect teaching materials that the external test does not include (Smith, Edelsky, Draper, Rottenber, and Cherland, 1990). • Teachers adjust the sequence of their curriculum based on what is included on the test (Herman and Golan 1991). • Teachers alter their instructional materials to resemble the format of mandated tests (Mathison,1987). • Teachers teach to the test when they believed important decisions such as student promotion will be based on test scores (Madaus, 1988). • A result of the emphasis on test results, is that teachers increase attention on paper-and-pencil computation, and reduce attention to project work (Romberg, Zarinnia, & Williams, 1989).

10. Teachers’ Perceptions about the Effects of Testing on teaching and the teaching profession • Teachers identified that their teaching was “worse instead of better” as a result of preparing children for testing: “I’m not the teacher I used to be. I used to be great, and I couldn’t wait to get to school every day because I loved being great at what I do. All of the most powerful teaching tools I used to use every day are no good to me now because they don’t help children get ready for the test, and it makes me like a robot instead of a teacher.”

11. Teachers identified the effects on teaching as a profession: “These tests, and all of this pressure to make kids do well on tests … it’s an insult. It’s saying that we aren’t a profession and we can’t be trusted to do our jobs, so high-pressure tactics are necessary to make us behave. They’re treating us like stupid children, they’re turning us into bad teachers, taking away every bit of pride.”

12. Teachers identified the negative effects of testing on student learning, student achievement, and student self-esteem: “I know this is disrespectful, but these tests are making my kids stupid. The kids I’ve had the last few years have gotten higher scores because I’ve worked so hard at getting them ready for the tests, but this is a façade because they just don’t have it together like my former students.”

13. What have teachers lost in the Time of Testing? • Voice and Ownership • Time • Faith • Opportunity • Desire (McCracken & McCracken, 2001).

14. Definition of Phonemic Awareness Involves the explicit awareness of the individual phonemes (sounds) and the manipulation of these sounds. It involves such task as rhyming, segmenting sounds, blending sounds, and manipulating sounds (deleting and substituting sounds). It's metalinguistic. Children learn how to think about the sound structure of language and are given strategies to both process and manipulate the sound structure in order to learn to read and spell.

15. Why is Phonemic Awareness Important • Educators are always looking for valid and reliable predicators of educational achievement and research indicates that phonemic awareness is the best predictor of early reading acquisition (Stanovich, 1993-94). • Phonemic awareness is both a prerequisite for and a consequence of learning to read (Yopp, 1992). • Phonemic awareness can be taught (Lundberg et al, 1988).

16. IRA position statement on teaching phonemic awareness • As positive as the Association is about recent research findings on phonemic awareness, there is concern that these findings might be misused. For example, mandates that require teachers to dedicate specific amounts of time to phonemic awareness instruction could compromise other important aspects of the literacy curriculum. The Association strongly supports a balanced approach to teaching reading--one that recognizes the importance of comprehension and enjoyment as much as discrete language skills.

17. A Case on point: School District No. 26 (Surrey)Kindergarten Phonemic Awareness Standards • Are these standards appropriate? • Why/why not?