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Strategies for Dealing with High-Stakes State Tests

Ms. McColskey and Ms. McMunn suggest that school and district leaders engage their teachers in conversations about this article, and they pose some questions that might be useful discussion-starters. HIGH-STAKES state tests - tests with important consequences for educators and students - have become the accountability tool of choice in many states as policy makers struggle to find ways to increase student achievement levels. As a result, educators trying to be responsive to the demands for improved state test scores can experience competing pressures: the push to implement short-term, "quick-fix" strategies designed to "get test scores up" and the desire to continue instructional reforms previously initiated in the service of the larger goal of developing increasing numbers of students who can function productively in a complex society. Having observed and supported education reform in the Southeast for the last decade, we feel that the Nineties can be described in terms of these competing pressures. In the first half of the decade, many schools made strides in empowering teachers to become involved in school improvement. Many also understood that the kinds of student outcomes described in the emerging standards documents would require a school to "reinvent itself around powerful pedagogies and new forms of organization that make it possible for educators to teach effectively and for all of our diverse students to learn core concepts and knowledge along with basic skills and capacities for thinking and reasoning they will need in the course of their lives."1 In the second half of the decade, as high-stakes testing programs swung into high gear, the discussion at some schools focused less on increasing students' chances of reaching higher levels of learning and more on increasing their chances of passing state tests. These are not necessarily the same things. Articles on approaches to accountability have typically been directed primarily toward state departments and policy makers, suggesting possible improvements such as embedding the results of achievement tests in a broader array of school indicators, including process measures;2 reducing the amount of testing;3 increasing the variety of item types;4 changing the tests every year; and increasing educators' understanding of standards and assessment.5 This article is intended to help educators who are on the receiving end of state accountability systems and who are sometimes torn between getting test scores up quickly (score increases that may not represent real learning gains) and focusing on strategies that support a high-quality learning environment in every classroom. In the current high-stakes assessment climate, it seems that some school and district leaders either have not realized the importance of evaluating their improvement strategies or have not had sufficient opportunities to examine whether those strategies are defensible in terms of enhancing student motivation, learning, and development over time. When the language and actions around school improvement communicate primarily a short-term, "get the scores up" approach, students and parents may begin to feel that learning needs are not being met. Newsweek recently ran a feature article describing the tension between the competing goals of short-term increases in test scores and other broader learning objectives. Author Daniel McGinn used Whitney Young High School as an example: Inside Chicago's top-ranked Whitney Young High School, the posters started appearing last December. LET'S BE #1! GIVE IT 110%! Usually this sort of rah-rah propaganda supports the basketball team, but this campaign by the principal had a different aim: urging kids to score high on the Illinois Goal Assessment Program, a standardized test that students would take in February. Tests are nothing new to the kids at Whitney Young - they already take three other batteries of standardized exams each year. …