I've always been agnostic about all the state testing requirements that came out of NCLB. I didn't think that they should be used to evaluate teachers' performance, but I thought that they were very useful for seeing comparing performances between richer and poorer school districts.

Statistics are always best when they are measuring a large sample of individuals. A greater N, the more reliable your findings. That's why evaluating a teacher using standardized tests is useless. Because N = 25. A teacher shouldn't be evaluated based on such a small sample of kids. 

I didn't even mind that kids lost four days to take the test. It seemed harmless enough, when it could provide such useful data. I didn't mind that some districts were teaching to the test, because those districts could use a little guidance any way. 

However, over the past few years, it has become increasingly obvious that these tests are being used in a really nasty way, and now, I'm majorly rethinking everything that I've ever said about standardized tests. 

While districts are fighting every effort to use standardized test to measure teachers, they have, at the same time, been using these tests to evaluate students. These tests, which are supposed to give us a slice of information about a large group of kids, are being used to place individual kids in honors classes and in special education classes. 

My son's classmate received As and Bs in his English class, but when he scored on the low average range of the standardized test, he was placed in a basic skills English class. The principal ignored an entire year's worth of classwork and instead used that one test to determine his placement. I've also seen the test used to determine higher placement, as well. It determines placement in honors class and the Gifted and Talented program. 

So, now these tests take precedence over schoolwork, even though the tests were designed to only measure a very minor aspect of school learning, on one particular week when millions of variables could interfere with the results. 

Because schools are under such pressure to raise their test scores, which determine rankings and even property value, there is growing attention on those that finish in the top 10% percentile. It's this group of highly intelligent, highly motivated, highly prepared students that help to determine the overall average for the school. One high scoring kid can kick that average up. (And the 15% of special ed kids can really screw with the average.) 

So that group of high fliers are pampered by the school district. They are fought for by competing charter schools and private programs. During the high school orientation last week, the principal explained that we were losing about 8% of the middle school population to magnet and private schools and they were going to start recruiting kids to stay in the school system when they were in 7th grade. Losing 8% of the town's smartest kids was a huge issue. Because it fucked with their averages. 

It bothers me that a school district places all of its energy catering to one sample of the population. They should be working to provide great teachers to the average student, too. Why doesn't every kid get the cool lessons and brain teasers in the Gifted and Talented program? 

I've been writing all weekend about the stress in the teenage world. The mis-use of standardized testing is part of the problem.