High Stakes Testing; Can You Win?

Welcome to the season of "high stakes" testing. Has anyone heard of something called the FCAT? If you haven't, you just aren't listening. Students across the state of Florida take a standardized test called the FCAT. Like most tests, it is designed to measure student performance in academic areas. These types of tests are given under specialized circumstances, usually timed with specific directions, and the results make a BIG difference--to each student, to each school, to the entire district, to our state. Much depends on it!

Why don't we give the FCAT at St. John Lutheran? We have chosen to give one of the most respected national achievement tests, the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT, but not the college board entrance exam). A national standardized test is one that statistically measures and compares a pupil's achievement to the performance of students all across the nation in both urban and rural, public and private settings. You are probably aware that when you receive your child's test data, you are able to interpret the scores to see and compare his or her performance with that of students all across the nation as well as peers at St. John. We as a school can see trends in curriculum and measure the success of our students and teacher performance over time. Since we have been giving the SAT in grades K5 through 9th grade for many years now including the Otis Lenon Mental Ability Screening Test in grades 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 we can show a strong history of constantly beating the national norms for student achievement at all grades.

It is always wise to remember that any test is a measurement of a student's performance at that one time and in that one setting. Achievement test scores should be compared to student grades in regular classwork. Trends over time examined. Yet, taken as an important piece of information in a comprehensive look at student growth and learning, achievement tests can be important tools. Should life impacting decisions be made based on any one test? In our opinion as educators, the answer is 'no'.

Standardized testing has value as one of the only ways to concretely measure academic knowledge and problem solving skills while allowing for comparisons across a large population of students who took the same test instrument. Authentic measurement of student performance in school also includes a variety of test formats, as well as oral presentations, essays, and memorization.

We will be taking our achievement tests this coming April and in the meantime, continue supporting your child's learning at home and at school. Testing is designed to measure how much students have learned over time, and not just because they practiced specifically for any one given test.