Achievement gap:
The widening space between the top and bottom test scores. (4/10/01)

Pass This Test or Else:
Schools struggle with even more standardized tests. (5/2/01)

Dropping the SAT:
Should we keep the test or get rid of it?
(3/7/01)

Your Educational Future: Rod Paige is confirmed as the news Sec. of Education (1/24/01)

Scholarship Money:
The Gates Foundation sets up a Billion dollar scholarship fund for minority students. (10/30/99)

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Testing students, teachers, and schools
By Irené Colthurst, age 14,
San Diego, California

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3! is the theme of the education bill proposed by President Bush and passed by the U.S. Senate this month in a 91-8 vote.

Under the proposal, states would test students in grades three-through-eight every year. Schools with low test scores get three years to turn themselves around. (Click here to find out more about the bill.)

But are tests the best way to improve schools?

Testing vs. grades

My opinion is that the results of one day of testing are not as good an assessment of student achievement as teacher observations, work portfolios and other measures that look at performance over time. When you're young, you change rapidly as you learn and grow -- a snapshot is not going to tell the whole story in most cases.

Indeed, it seems the plan sees testing as an end, more than the means that it was designed to be. And yet the stakes for all involved, from the students themselves to the principals, the school boards, the state governors, and President Bush, are extremely high.

Another issue involved is the focus of the plan on the schools' performance, while giving the parents the power to move their child. What if the child's performance improved from Year 1 of the intervention to Year 2, and the school's overall performance did not? The parent probably will feel that the school is at least doing right by their child, and they will likely want the child to remain at that school.

And what about the students? I think they will be torn between state tests and grades. Even though society will judge their schools by their test scores, their teachers will continue to stress grades. Grades are the true standard in the minds of American students.

Some public school officials are less than thrilled with the new testing plan, and I agree with them.

"I can get on the scale and it'll tell me how much I weigh, that part is easy. But if I don't get on the scale and analyze how I got to that weight, I don't think it helps me to change my behavior," said Oakland public schools superintendent Dennis K. Chaconas.

"They have a carrot and they have a stick. But what they don't have is a bridge to help schools get better," said Amy Wilkins of the education reform group Education Trust.

Even with these unaddressed problems, the bill itself does contain some good things. Title I funding for low-income students is increased, and local school districts are given more power to decide how federal funds will be spent.

So students: as Bush's #1 domestic priority comes closer to being a reality, what should you do? Sharpen your #2 pencils.

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