Page 4 - THE Journal, March 2017

Editor’sNote David Nagel, Editor-in-Chief
Teachers Versus Testing
HIGH SCHOOL GRADES are bet- ter predictors of student success in higher education than test scores.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Now consider the policy implications. Researchers at the University of Chicago
recently launched a project to dispel com- mon misconceptions in education (find the report at toandthrough.uchicago.edu/ mythbusters). One of the myths busted by the project was the notion that tests like the ACT and SAT are better predictors of students’ readiness for col-
lege than grades. What they revealed was that the better predictor of student attain- ment was actually GPA.
From the report: “While
ACT/SAT scores matter
for college access, grades
(GPAs) are much more pre-
dictive of college success. In
fact, strong grades — earning
As and Bs in high school — are the stron- gest indicator of college readiness and are much more predictive of college graduation than any test score. Students with an ACT score of 21–23 have about a 50 percent chance of graduating college if their high school GPA is between 2.5 and 2.9. Yet stu- dents with ACT scores in the same range of 21–23 but with high school GPAs between 3.0 and 3.4 graduate from college at rates of nearly 70 percent.”
Hmm. So it’s the teachers, not some arbitrary third-party testing services, who have the deeper insights into students’ capabilities?
Who’da thunk?
Based on the Bush and Obama policies of the last 16 years, you’d think teachers were the dead weight in our education
system, needing constant second-guessing through standardized testing to “hold them accountable” (whatever that means).
That’s a little bit of conflation right
r: 41 there, admittedly. But is it a stretch gto: qu1es1- 0 b: 146
tion the validity of spending billions of dol- lars every year on high-stakes assessments that may do nothing to help us predict
the success of our students in education beyond what we already know based on the grades their teachers have given them?
Why are we
doing it?
I’ve asked the question
before: If the goal of 13 years of formal education
is answering X number of questions on a standardized test, what is the point of spending billions of dollars on formal education? That’s an incredibly inefficient waste of 13 years. Surely a semester-long cram session
#296e92
4
| MARCH 2017
could get the trick done. But more, if teach- ers can’t even be trusted — to the point where policymakers are eager to spend funds on third-party testing services — then why are we certifying them to educate in the first place?
This is just one more piece of evidence that it’s the educators, not the test makers, not the vendors, not the policymakers, who ought to continue to be entrusted with the education of our 50 million K–12 students. Why not go in the opposite direction and give teachers’ insights into their students greater weight (beyond just letter grades) and drop testing altogether?
To continue the conversation, e-mail me at dnagel@1105media.com.
thejournal.com
March 2017 : Volume 44, No. 2
Editorial Advisory Board
Elisa Carlson
Director of Instruction, Curriculum and Innovation, Surrey Schools (British Columbia, Canada)
Julie Evans
Chief Executive Officer, Project Tomorrow
Geoffrey H. Fletcher
Private Consultant
Ann Flynn
Director of Education Technology & State Association Services, National School Boards Association
Phil Hardin
Director of Project IMPACT, Iredell-Statesville School System (NC)
Christopher Harris
Coordinator, School Library System, Genesee Valley Educational Partnership (NY)
Cathy Hutchins
Principal, South Woods Elementary School, St. John’s County School District (FL)
Thomas C. Murray
State and District Digital Learning Director, Alliance for Excellent Education
Erin Wilkey Oh
Executive Editor, Education Marketing, Common Sense Education
Mark Stevens
General Manager, NEA Academy
Donna Teuber
Team Leader for Technology Integration, Richland School District Two (SC)