Trisha Marczak
Minnesota is taking a step away from its controversial mandated testing model, with lawmakers considering a bill that would focus more on individual students’ college preparedness rather than testing benchmarks.
The bill aims to do what state educators have been calling for — a move away from a system of education that requires teachers to “teach to the test,” and a move toward a system that better prepares students for life after high school, whether that be full-time employment or post-secondary education.
It’s a trend being carried out throughout the U.S., as states consider alternatives to the 2001 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) standards implemented by former President George W. Bush. The issue is even being debated in the conservative state of Texas, where the House earlier this month approved an overhaul of standardized tests by a vote of 145-2.
The proposal in Minnesota doesn’t look too different from the bill in Texas. Students would still be tested starting in eighth grade, but the assessments would measure students’ preparedness for college.
This would also allow educators to hone in on students’ strengths and pinpoint areas that may be in need of improvement in order for a student to meet his or her post-graduation goal.
Aside from a more career-oriented education system, the proposed plan would not require students to pass a standardized, one size fits all test — and that has some lawmakers nervous.
Republicans in the state senate are opposed to the bill, claiming it would water down the education system, rather than improve it. They’re joined by the Minnesota Business Partnership, which has launched a commercial campaign aimed at the bill’s defeat.
“Instead of eliminating these tests, legislators should keep them as we transition to a new system based on what is used by our state’s higher education institutes,” the organization indicated in a press release.
Yet those in favor of the bill — and educators — are asking lawmakers to listen to their side, claiming it would lead to student success, the ultimate goal of the public education system.
“We don’t think benchmarks … are always a good indicator of career and college readiness,” Sen. Kevin Dahle, a Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
The broader picture
The same move considered in Minnesota was accomplished in California in 2012, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law, to the delight of educators. The bill, SB 1458, which is now law, redefined the Academic Performance Index (API) by moving away from standardized testing and putting more attention on graduation rates and preparing students for higher education.
“For years, ‘Teaching to the test’ has become more than a worn cliche because 100 percent of the API relied on bubble tests scores in limited subject areas,” State Sen. Darrell Steinberg, a co-author of the bill said in a press release following its passage. “But life is not a bubble test and that system has failed our kids.”
That sentiment was echoed this month in Texas, when lawmakers pulled together for a bipartisan approval of a similar bill in their state house.
“Parents, students, business groups, professional education administrators, school boards, everybody’s on board with this,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, told the Associated Press.
In Alabama, a similar bill just made its way out of committee, to the delight of Republicans. There, Republicans take the position that standardized tests allow for education systems to push a liberalized agenda of conformity. Last year in Oklahoma, efforts were made to drop standardized testing tied to graduation requirements — the effort failed, to the dismay of educators.
Nationwide, 44 states have submitted waivers for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) — 34 states have received them; in addition to Washington, D.C., Minnesota was one of those states. The waivers vary in degrees, but allow flexibility in implementing NCLB standards.
In order for waivers to be granted, districts must prove they have an alternative, which can include college-ready and career-ready standards, along with evaluation systems for teachers and administrators partly based on achievement growth, according to the Center on Education Policy.
A broken system
Based on state test scores, the current system just isn’t working. And the penalties for schools that don’t meet standards is damaging, requiring mandated funding for tutoring and other efforts to improve scores.
Test scores in Minnesota are broken down into different categories — if a school has a high percentage of students with special needs, for example, the entire district could be deemed as “Not Meeting Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP),” based on that category of students’ result. Special needs students are required to take the same test as the rest of district students.
Under No Child Left Behind guidelines (NCLB), the state set in motion a policy that would mandate all students, starting in 2014, to pass the math test, administered in grade 11, before receiving a diploma.
Last year in Minnesota, just 58 percent of high school students passed the “graduation standard” math test on the first attempt. That’s up from the 45.9 percent mark hit in 2008, but it’s nowhere near the 100 percent proficiency rate lawmakers desired by 2014.
The Center of Education Policy has declared the standard an “unrealistic goal.”