How Do You and Teachers in Your School Use Standardized Test Results?

How DON'T we use them? That is the question...

Standardized tests, unfortunately, mandate a great deal of a high school student's future in regard to classroom/level placement, indicators of future performance, and overall, a student's morale and self-esteem. The example most relevant to me is for my juniors taking the HSPAs...if these kids fail the HSPAs, they must then be placed in the English Skills 12 class, or the SRA class. For those of you unfamiliar with the SRA, it is the state-mandated "substitute" for passing the HSPAs. It involves completing an assortment of reading and writing tasks which are quite repetitive unless the student happens to achieve a passing grade on the SRA task immediately, which is rare. As you might expect, this process is less than thrilling. Necessary, but not the most motivating experience. This experience, however, is quite a motivator to PASS the HSPAs the first time around.

The results of the HSPA experience also mandate pretty much the senior year of the student; if the student fails, they go to the SRA class; if they just barely pass, they go to the English 4 class, which is like the SRA class without that name and a bit more variety; if they pass well, they have their choice of senior English class: anything from Film Analysis to Psychology in Literature.

The process is virtually the same for the sophomores and freshman, who have to take our individual standardized tests which can have the same results for them as the juniors: lower placement for next year's English. Why does it always seem that it's lower placement? I've never heard of a student who scores so high on a standardized test that they move him up to Honors or AP. That being said, I have had an Honors student fail the HSPAs and have to take both the SRA class and Honors English their senior year...

In a nutsell, the scope of standardized tests is far reaching and affects a great deal of the student's educational experience. Unfortunate.