Today is the day, the one day when we give the one test to the one grade level that will determine the public's perception of our school, our staff, and each individual teacher. Ok, maybe some people in the public will realize that there is more to a high school that its report card grade, but many won't.
However, I am going to try to look at multiple perspectives. Is it fair to be judged on one test on one particular day? Well, if you ask the Atlanta Falcons, they will probably tell us that they will be judged on one-half of one game, as will the Patriots. No one really cares how well the Falcons played in the first half, or how poorly the Patriots played in the second half. If a surgeon has done well his entire career but botches my surgery, I don't much care about all those other successes. This is even true with repairs on my car; you've been a great mechanic, but if you mess up my car, I'll likely take my business elsewhere.
Before everyone starts to think I am a traitor to my students and to public education, I'll point out why those are not effective analogies and could instead be used to teach logical fallacies. A surgeon is trained to do surgery. S/he practices surgery before doing it for real. These are the skills we want him/her to develop and implement. The same is true for the football player or the mechanic. However, when students take the ACT, some skills we want them to have are embedded in the test, but a good portion of their success is learning to take this particular test. How do I time myself, how do I skim and scan, how do I eliminate answers to take my best guess? And each section has its own set of tips and skills to learn and apply. Some of our students, those who are college-bound and are happy to take the test free-of-charge, practice all of these test-taking skills and become quite skillful at taking the ACT. But is this really what we want them to be learning?
One other point: surgeons, pro football players, and auto mechanics have CHOSEN to do this for a living and are PAID to do it. Not so with students taking the ACT. Most of them will only ever do it once, and even that is often not their own choice. A video recently appeared on the news featuring Tom Brady skiing, which was notably less successful than his quarterbacking. But which one is more important to Tom Brady? Which is he paid to do? Which has he chosen as his career?
ReplyDeleteI remember being a nervous wreck when I had to take the ACT in high school. I know that I tend to be a slower reader so I was never very confident when having to take tests that require a lot of reading with a time limit. There was also the added pressure of getting a score that was high enough to get me into the college of my choice. I didn't think it was a fair that one score could mask all of the hard work I put in during my four years of high school. Now teachers have to worry about the ACT all over again.
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