ABQJOURNAL OPINION/GUEST_COLUMNS: New Exit Exam Not Answer

Saturday, October 30, 2010

New Exit Exam Not Answer

By Mia Sosa-Provencio
Former APS High School Teacher
          An educator in India once said, "In America, you test your students a lot, don't you? Here, when we want an elephant to grow, we feed the elephant. We don't weigh the elephant."
        I was reminded of this simple yet profound quote as I was reading about the high school exit exam that the Public Education Department will now require for all graduating seniors in New Mexico. According to the PED, the Standards Based Assessment will replace the High School Competency Exam as a requirement for graduation in all New Mexico high schools.
        By administering a more rigorous high school exit exam, the PED is attempting to increase the achievement rates of New Mexico's students; while this is a noble aim, requiring a more rigorous exit exam for graduation is not the answer.
        Classroom success requires, among other things: rich, challenging and culturally relevant curriculum; increased resources for communities in poverty; an experienced and supported staff; policies that ensure educational equity; and support for students who face additional struggles including language and ability diversity. However, the educational paradigm has shifted from meaningful classroom instruction and assessment to an overreliance on testing.
        Students and their needs are no longer at the center of our educational system — they have been usurped by this continuously increasing focus on external measurement. Our state and national shift toward more testing in the name of standards is demeaning the notion of what it means to become educated in this country.
        Those elements that can readily be measured are oftentimes not the most important aspects of education — what of democratic ideals, critical thinking, creativity, cooperative learning, problem-solving or civic engagement?
        According to Diane Ravich, former assistant secretary of education under George H.W. Bush and educational historian with more than 40 years of experience, "when we define what matters in education only by what we can measure, we are in serious trouble ... we tend to forget that schools are responsible for shaping character, developing sound minds in healthy bodies ... and forming citizens for our democracy."
        Narrowed curriculum results when the stakes are ever higher.
        What becomes of art education, music, physical education, cross-curricular projects and the like? For many students, these are the classes that make education meaningful and enjoyable, but in this current climate, "luxuries" such as these are done away with out of necessity in order to make room for the skills students are measured by.
        Public schools, by definition, are to bear the responsibility of providing a liberal arts education for all students, and standardized testing that leaves little room for anything else runs counter to this responsibility.
        According to the PED, students who do not pass the test will be "allowed to take it up to five years after high school," but is it reasonable and realistic to think that students who were already academically disassociated and/or frustrated are going to return to take a test for up to five years after finishing high school in order to receive a diploma? Isn't it necessary to funnel our collective energy and resources into educationally serving students throughout all their years of schooling and not just preparing them to pass an exit exam?
        Engaging students is challenging enough for teachers and administrators without this added punitive measure.
        With a dropout rate in New Mexico of more than 50 percent, especially among minority students, primary attention must be on the classroom — offering students and teachers the resources they need to be successful — and not on raising the bar around graduation time.
        Perhaps students will learn to pass this exam in great numbers — already, teachers are becoming skilled at teaching test-taking strategies as a survival mechanism for students and schools alike — but what is the true goal of education? Is the goal an aptitude in taking standardized tests? Is the goal to reduce the curriculum to an unrecognizably narrow focus that parallels only those skills that are tested for but fails to prepare students for democratic citizenry?
        To be clear, no one is crying out against assessment or high expectations for students, but what does passing a test of this sort really mean?
        This shift in educational policy is taking authentic and meaningful student assessment out of the hands of teachers and putting it instead into the hands of an external entity that decides what constitutes valuable knowledge and skills and by contrast, what does not.
        The enforcement of this test is more of the same failed policies that deprofessionalize teachers, punish schools and school districts, and further marginalize students who are desperately in need of a meaningful, enriching education.
        Former Rio Grande High School teacher Mia Sosa-Provencio is currently a doctoral student at New Mexico State University.

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