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Speeches
Forum on
Standards of Learning/Assessment
April 20, 1999
Remarks of Rosemary Lynch
President, Fairfax County Council of PTAs
Good Evening. I am
Rosemary Lynch, President of Fairfax County Council of PTAs (FCCPTA).
Tonight our guests are Kirk Schroder, President of the State BOE, Suzy
Noble and Sen. John Russell, members of the BOE. In the audience are
Linda McGinn and Dr. Margaret Roberts from the Department of Education.
Mr. Schroder, Ms Noble and Ms. McGinn thank you for joining us tonight.
We are pleased that you accepted our invitation to our community
meeting. We are excited because we view this event as an opportunity for
our community to have an open dialogue with the State Board of
Education.
The FCCPTA appreciates
the adjustments that the State BOE made to the SOLs. Parents and
education professionals presented recommendations at public hearings
across the state. The Board listened to these concerns and as a result
the scores of limited English proficient students will not be reported
with school scores for two years. The Board changed the timing of the
History SOL tests for grades 5 and 8 so that it more closely matches the
time of the instruction. Finally, the Board moved the tests closer to
the end of the year.
Despite these
adjustments, we feel there are fundamental concerns that still need to
be addressed. The FCCPTA supports high academic standards and
accountability, however, we believe that a solitary assessment is not
the best way to get a true picture of the accomplishments of students,
teacher, and schools. We advocate a balanced assessment package. With
such high stakes we need more than multiple choice questions to
determine a child's mastery of the curriculum or the overall quality of
a school.
A fundamental issue for
the FCCPTA is the impact of the SOLs and SOL assessments on teaching and
learning particularly in the area of Social Studies. Our parents are
telling us that programs such as Great Books and Colonial Days are being
dropped from the curriculum. Learning time is being lost because of all
the time needed to administer tests. In making time for the test
preparations, teachers feel forced to reorient teaching away from
role-playing, simulations, research projects, and essay writing. These
and other in-depth activities are the difference between memorization
and true learning. Weeks are spent reviewing for the SOL tests - time
that should be spent enhancing student understanding and learning.
Teachers tell us they are concerned because they are drilling facts into
children who are not developmentally able to understand the concepts
behind them. They ask, "Isn't it more important to know why the
British settled Jamestown than to memorize the names of the captains of
the 3 ships that they sailed in?" Others comment on their
frustrations, because they frequently find it essential to stop
important classroom discussions and learning experiences, just to move
on to one more benchmark or standard. Many describe their concerns about
the levels of stress they see in their classrooms, their schools, and at
home.
There is a fear that the
History SOLs will threaten tolerance and a cultural balance that we have
been attempting to achieve within our very culturally and economically
diverse community. This balance is essential to our society. Parents of
minority children, children with special needs, and limited English
proficient children are concerned that their children will be left
behind in this high stakes system. What is being done to ensure that the
testing program will truly show what these children know? We urge the
Board to rewrite the History Standards in a more balanced format.
We believe important
education policy issues like class size, teacher training, and funding
equities deserve more attention. More standards and standardized tests
are simplistic formulas for reform that mask our more pressing policy
issues. We agree that:
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Student assessment
for the 21st century must use diverse methods to measure and to
value multiple approaches to teaching and learning, and must have as
an expectation that all students will improve. Further, the
standards movement must not limit learning by narrowing curricula,
nor inhibit creative teaching and learning that is grounded in
effective practice and sound research and inquiry.
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Accountability
systems should be designed to provide useful and appropriate
information for educators, policymakers and the public. Further,
standards for learning and performance and their accompanying
assessments should serve as targets for inspiring and improving
student learning, not as a means to sort and to rank students.
In addition to our
fundamental issues, we have several concerns that we think still need to
be addressed.
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Revise the
Accountability/Accreditation Policy
It is imprudent to give
one assessment tool so much power. The goal of this initiative should be
to improve academic achievement. Accordingly, we encourage the Board to
remain open to creating a balanced assessment/accreditation policy, one
that shows the strengths and weaknesses of the students.
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Give Advance Notice
of Testing Dates
The BOE should announce
the testing window before the school year begins. Schools must have this
information to avoid significant scheduling problems with other
activities and particularly the AP tests.
We believe the current
form of reporting the SOL scores does not provide parents or teachers
with valuable information about the strengths and weaknesses of
students. It is easier to understand how our children did on the test if
we know how many items there were and how many of those items were
answered correctly. The current scaled scores do not provide sufficient
information to parents or teachers. We need to know what the formula is
for defining proficient. In addition, the school system needs the data
tapes for the SOL and the Stanford 9 tests.
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Provide for Measuring
Improvement
There is no correlation
between test scores from one grade level to the next. If a child
receives a higher scaled score on one of the fifth grade tests than he
did in the third grade, parents and teachers cannot conclude that the
child has improved. There should be an item analysis so that schools
know where teaching needs to be adjusted.
We are proud of the
Fairfax County Public Schools. The vast majority of our teachers do an
impressive job meeting the wide range of educational challenges our
154,000 children. Our school division has been dedicated to improving
and reinforcing teaching activities. Our school division is extremely
rich in diversity, reflecting more than 140 languages, and a wide range
of learning experiences, interests, gifts, abilities, and learning
styles. Our children are not all cut from the same cloth. "Despite
the challenges associated with the growing number of minority and
economically disadvantaged students," a recent MGT of America
management review stated, "FCPS students are some of the highest
performing in the nation."
There are those who
accuse us of demonizing the SOLs. It is an accusation that inflames
emotions but nothing could be further from the truth. What we are about,
in the FCCPTA is a deep commitment to excellence in education. Our
concerns are founded on research and a strong understanding of the
issues. We are vocal about our beliefs because we have high expectations
for our school system. We believe that due diligence requires that our
policy makers listen to and consider our parents' and professional
educators valid concerns. We want to raise a generation of children,
capable of adapting to the rapid and accelerating pace of change in the
world today.
We believe a sign of
strong leadership is the ability to go back and say we can do this
better. Please be willing to make changes to the accountability system.
High stakes programs should not be rushed into. True educational reform
must inspire all children to excel.
We do not want to see a
two tiered education program in Virginia. We do not want to see children
dropping out of school because they cannot pass one of many tests and
therefore do not stand a chance to earn a regular diploma. We cannot
afford to leave a group of children behind. Let us be thoughtful and
wise. Let us be considerate of the children. Let us teach them well,
they are our future.
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