Three Is More Than One

 

Umm, excuse me Governor Desantis but last year you said that you had a issue with standardized testing. I was like okay, this is a cause that I can get behind. The way we are currently using standardized test in the education system is abhorrent. In many cases these tests are the only measure of student and teacher success. Standardized tests don't allow us to celebrate the small wins. If a student read 2 books last year and 15 books this year, that's a win. If you learned to write your name in cursive, that's a win. If you know how to divide or understand fractions that's a win. I don't care what the test says.

When did kids become standardized. My oldest daughter could read before she went to kindergarten. Her sister learned to read in kindergarten. My son could read when he was four. They all turned out just fine. Kids are not standardized. 

I was excited to hear that we were doing away with the FSA. As an educator, I felt like someone was finally paying attention. Then we got the news that now we get to take three tests instead of one. Wait, what? Three is more than one. 

Now they are going to change the name from FSA to something else (Benchmarks), but the real question is what else are they going to change? I hope that these three tests will be used to help identify gaps in student learning so that we can correct them early, but to be honest I doubt that is the case. But, I've been in education a long time and maybe I am too jaded when it comes to the subject of testing. Perhaps they will use these new mini assessments in a way that will actually benefit student learning. Perhaps they won't use them to rank and rate teacher performance. I guess we will have to wait and see. 

Additional note: I started this blog on Thursday morning and finished it on Friday. Yesterday FSA scores came back and I have already heard rumbles about how awful they are. Hello we just came off of two years of "hybrid learning". Per usual they are asking teachers what we could have done better. Maybe I should have gotten into my time machine and stopped Covid? Insert exasperated sigh here!