Decry Test-Prep Focus
Teachers: Sacrifice Learning for Scores

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

January is a big testing month in the city's public schools, but some Teachers say they wish they could toss out the standardized forms and get back to teaching.

JOEL I. KLEIN: Made learning secondary?

The state reading and writing tests for 3rd through 5th grades were held last week and the 6th through 8th graders are making their way through the exams this week. This year the consequences are much higher, with the results weighing heavily on a school's evaluation and potentially the fate and paychecks of its leadership. And because the schools' grades assigned by the Department of Education are based on student progress, Teachers are under enormous pressure to push every student to raise his or her score.

Tests Skew Priorities

"Anyone who says that Teachers aren't evaluated on test scores is a liar," said Suk Albino, a 17-year veteran Teacher at P.S. 126 in lower Manhattan.

The fourth-grade Teacher, who had just finished supervising the third day of the state English Language Arts test, said she did not fault her Principal. She said her school's approach had been to integrate test preparation into the school day with as little disruption to regular lessons as possible. But she argued Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein's emphasis on test scores was twisting priorities across the system. "The children are no longer the end, they're the means to an end," she stated, sitting in her empty classroom after school last week.

P.S. 126, which received a C on its school report card this year, had about 64 percent testing as proficient or above on the state ELA last year. More than 3/4 of the students live in poverty and the school draws from Chinatown and the public housing projects that loom over it, with a student population that is about 43 percent Asian, one-third Latino and 20 percent black.

A Weekly Drill

The Chief-Leader/Meredith Kolodner A FALSE INDICATOR: Fourth-grade Teachers at P.S. 126, (from left) Roaine Fine, Rachel Goren, and Suk Albino, spent last week administering the state English Language Arts test but believe the exam doesn't help to advance the children's education. "I don't believe in standardized testing,' said Ms. Fine, 'but I do the prep because it's the kids' future.'

The fourth-grade Teachers have been slipping in test preparation about once a week since October, morphing their morning shared reading session into a format that would familiarize the children with the test methods.

But beginning in December, the test prep was amped up, going from twice a week to three times in the final week before Christmas, with full-scale practice tests to build their children's stamina.

"I don't believe in standardized testing," said first-year Teacher Roaine Fine, "but I do the prep because it's the kids' future. They would be the ones to suffer if I didn't."

Ms. Fine believes that the tests unfairly divide children, using an arbitrary definition of achievement that often misses the full intellectual capability of a child. She has some students who she says make the most insightful comments in the class if a passage is read to them. But they stumble when they have to read the piece themselves and then organize their thoughts on paper.

Writing Lands Fast Track

"Why should only the kids who can write well get into the best middle schools? What about the ones that are just as smart, maybe even smarter, but are just learning those skills at a slower pace?" she asked. "It's a chain of events; if they don't get into a good middle school, then they don't go to a good high school, and then they don't get to a good college or maybe any college."

She and Rachel Goren, with whom she co-teaches a combined general and special education class, have noticed that some of the test passages make references to subjects that their students have no contact with. "Like tennis," said Ms. Goren, "or the beach. Lots of my kids have never seen a beach." She said they had to spend some time recently explaining what a station wagon was after a passage they were reading compared something to the size of the large vehicle.

None of the P.S. 126 Teachers said that the tests helped them to evaluate and improve their students' learning, especially because the results of the tests don't arrive until the end of the year. "We look at what each individual child needs," said Ms. Goren, who is in her third year of teaching. "We set benchmarks for each child. A test can't do that."

'Serious From the Start'

Other schools have an even more intensive test-preparation schedule, but many of those Teachers also do not agree with the emphasis placed on the tests.

"Test prep starts in earnest for us in the beginning of the year," said Tricia Gomes, a United Federation of Teachers chapter leader at a District 26 elementary school in Queens.

She said that a Teacher in her chapter was questioned about why she wasn't doing test prep in December. "It's highly expected and demanded by Principals and parents," Ms. Gomes said. "It's almost a time slot in the day."

Principals buy test-prep books from different publishers and Teachers assign them for homework. Some parents received instructions and a schedule over the winter break for daily 40- to 50-minute test prep exercises, with an exception for Christmas Day.

Do It or Else

"If you don't do the test prep as a Teacher," said Ms. Gomes, "it can lead to discipline and you can be considered insubordinate. Sometimes you have to do it in a particular way that's considered most effective to teach the children test-taking strategies, but that can be different from learning."

Some Teachers, who asked that their names not be used out of fear that their Principals would be angry, said that in their schools the fourth grade becomes obsessed with math and English, since those are the tests administered, and subjects like social studies and science get neglected. Then in 5th grade, the social studies tests are given in November. They say the pressure is strong enough that they only do minimal English and math in the first few months of the year, so that they can gear up the children for the social studies test.

Darylle Brent, a chapter leader at P.S. 31 in Bayside, Queens, has been teaching since 1967 and sees most of the problems stemming from the advent of the Federal No Child Left Behind Act, which mandated testing, and the Bloomberg administration's increased focus on test scores.

'Teaching Test Prep'

"The way the Chancellor has ordered and prescribed and manipulated things is such that test prep has become a discipline that is now taught," she said.

P.S. 31 has done well by the measures of the new system, scoring an A on its progress report this year after 78 percent of last year's fourth-grade class passed the ELA. It has a diverse student body - about half Asian and 18 percent and 15 percent Latino and black, respectively - but unlike P.S. 126, about a third of its students come from families living in poverty.

The Teachers who object to the testing focus do so, they say, primarily because they think it takes away from learning overall. Many are not convinced that their children who did well on the tests last week could repeat their success in a few months without the same level of intensive prep.

"I think education has moved away from learning how to learn," said Ms. Gomes. "A school's grade on its progress report has taken priority over the needs of the child."