A new effort in Los Angeles public schools will deemphasize standardized testing and look for new ways to measure student progress, a small but ambitous rejection of a decades-old nationwide approach to student evaluation.
Under a Board of Education resolution, adopted Tuesday by a 4-3 vote, up to 10 schools could, as early as next fall, opt out of all standardized tests and test prep — other than what is required by the state and federal governments.
The split vote represented the philosophical divide on the issue: Supporters said the action is an antidote to an omnipresent focus on anxiety-provoking standardized tests that are detrimental to deep and engaging learning. Critics worried about a loss of rigor and consistent evaluation that would hamper attempts to make teaching more effective.
The move could also conflict with the strategic plan of L.A. Unified Supt. Alberto Carvalho, whose staff relies heavily on standardized data in evaluating and guiding the work of schools. Analysis of data from standardized tests has been a hallmark of his administration.
The small intial number that can opt out of testing was a compromise made to Carvalho’s team. The original language of the resolution had set no limits on the number of “community schools” that could apply. There are 63 community schools in L.A. — campuses that receive extra state funding to offer an array of services to students and families, such as healthcare, mental health counseling and other social and academic supports.
Carvalho made no comments during the board discussion, but in a brief interview after the meeting said the pilot might yield useful information.
Regardless of the board action, state testing in math and English Language Arts remains required of students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11. Science is tested at three grade levels. English learners are tested on their progress every year and districts must show they also are monitoring their progress with an assessment during the year.
But for most students, the district’s own bevvy of tests, largely through a program called i-Ready, could be eliminated at these schools. The i-Ready tests are taken at the beginning and end of the year. In addition, a test called DIBELS assesses the reading of young students.
Resolution author and school board President Jackie Goldberg said she is targeting a billion-dollar industry focused on profits at the expense of what is best for students.
Once “corporate America” decided that standardized tests would “judge all of what’s going on in schools,” she said during the board meeting, “we began to have an industry providing enormous amount of materials: tests, practice tests, practice-practice tests and regional tests; middle-school-year tests, end-of-the-year tests; tests to take when you’re on the way to school; tests when you’re in the bathroom — test wherever you could.”
“Because the whole goal of life became not the love of learning, not the enjoyment of education, not the exchange of ideas, but whether or not your school could move up on its test scores.”
“For at least 20 years, I have found that repugnant,” said Goldberg, who is not running for reelection and will retire at the end of the year. “We’ll get everybody ready all the time for testing. And I think we’re doing great harm.”
Goldberg said that the selected community schools, with their extra staffing, could show that assessment can be well-managed locally by teachers and school administrators to track students’ academic performance without losing so much learning time to preparing for and taking generic multiple-choice tests.
Board member Nick Melvoin voted no.
“I do appreciate what you’re trying to do,” he said. “One of the challenges is … a few various tensions within the district right now. … I do think you can’t manage what you can’t measure.”
“We also are entering a period of limited resources and and declining enrollment, and trying to understand what works, and having that common language about what works,” he added.
Board member Rocio Rivas, who co-sponsored the resolution, read letters from fifth-graders at a community school in her board district, voicing their objections to extent of testing.
“My personal experience with this year’s testing was really bad,” the student wrote. “During the i-Ready Spanish and Math test I burst out crying because it caused anxiety. It didn’t help that I wasn’t even half way through with those tests, and I knew we still had weeks of testing
ahead.”
“My personal experience with this year’s testing was endless boredom and dreading school for more than a month,” wrote another. “I usually love learning.”
Rivas directly criticized the i-Ready program, which was brought in by Carvalho. The superintendent did not respond, nor was he asked for his analysis by any board member during the discussion.
Another co-sponsor was board member Kelly Gonez.
“The focus on testing emanates from Washington,” she said. “That is what creates the high-stakes testing and accountability environment that our schools in America operate under.”
Instead, she said, “we want to focus on authentic, rigorous education and building relationships and critical thinking, which is not measured by standardized tests.”
As a science teacher, she said, “I was incredibly frustrated because … I don’t think science is taught with textbooks and a multiple-choice assessment. That just is such a short-changing of the type of education that we want to see our children receive.”
The resolution calls for schools to develop plans that maintain rigorous standards. But that wasn’t enough for George McKenna, who voted no.
“When you start throwing it out, it seems like that’s a solution in search of a problem, as opposed to saying: Can we amend this? How many assessments are too many?” McKenna said.
“The university professors are not going to water it down and not test them,” he said. “You have to take tests to work in the post office.
“Gifting children with the absence of assessment is not a gift. It is also a political statement that says we don’t want our teachers being exposed. They’re not really teaching our children to be competitive, because the standardized test says all children in the country at the same time take the same test.”
Goldberg’s resolution aligns with the leadership of the teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles. Union president Cecily Myart-Cruz is philosophically opposed to all standardized testing.
In the past, Carvalho has said that the district’s testing of students through i-Ready allows for faster and more precise tracking of what students are learning — so midyear adjustments can be made and so students end up in the correct classes. In contrast, he has said, the state test is a once-a-year snapshot — before learning is complete. And the results arrive too late to act on for individual students, he has said.
Board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin had questions and comments related to i-Ready and other elements of the proposal.
“I was really excited when we adopted i-Ready, because it was going to give us some ongoing information throughout the year and let us know how schools were making progress,” Franklin said.
Her issues included whether i-Ready had reduced overall standardized testing by 40%, as Carvalho had previously claimed.
District staff provided no input on the question.
Franklin decided to vote no.
Still, with the vote of Scott Schmerelson, the measure passed.
“It’s a noble experiment,” Schmerelson said. “I just would like to see how the 10 schools are going to use some kind of assessment at the end — portfolios or however they do it — to decide what the students have actually accomplished and learned. That would be important for me.”
Carvalho discussed the board’s action in a brief interview after the meeting.
“It is reasonable to first understand what this pilot would look like,” he said. “What are the types of progressive assessments that would be utilized by these schools? … I think it can work in tandem with the efforts that we have launched, districtwide. … There’s always a possibility that we may learn something of consequence through these schools.”