Module 6 Unit 1 Activity 3: High Stakes Assessments
High Stakes Testing and Me
Being born and raised in the United States, one would think that I would be well familiar with high stakes testing. But I am not, at least, not in the form they are today. During my childhood, I had multiple encounters with standardized tests, which under Bush's much beloved No Child Left Behind (NCLB), would morph into the high stakes testing children all over the United States know today.
I took my first test in third grade, called the Iowa Test, and then the following year, took the MEAP (Michigan something or other), and then those two tests came and went irregularly throughout the rest of my school career. I did not know when they came, I did not know why they were given to me, nor did I care, and it seemed, neither did my teachers (this attitude must be baffling to teachers in the US today). I tested well, my parents took a look at it then shoved it into a dark corner, and that was it. In high school, I was told that my decent performance on the MEAP in my Junior year entitled me to a $2000 scholarship, which, realistically, is a drop in the bucket. Like all of my previous encounters with these kinds of tests, I ignored them.
And then I became a teacher.
I taught briefly in Philadelphia for a year, and soon discovered that testing happened not once in a blue moon, but almost every year. That year, I heard rumors of a new policy that had just been passed, which would make it that student scores on their standardized tests would affect their ability to graduate. I saw the tenseness and near panic of my students as they took their tests. Once, when I collected their scratch paper, I noticed comments written that were unrelated to the subject they were being tested in.
With a feeling of defeat, scrawled in lazy, loopy letters, was the message, "You win."
I left the US the following year to become a teacher at an international school.
High Stakes Testing in Taiwan and at My Current School
My current school is a private international school in Taiwan. The school is new, and the student body is still mainly Taiwanese (though there has been a recent increase in Koreans). A number of the students have lived overseas, but cannot, due to the lack of a foreign passport, attend an American international school (Crooks 2006). Their families, fearing that their children would have difficulty fitting back into a traditional Taiwanese school, elected on this one, a private school that purports to teach students using a western-style curriculum as opposed to a traditional Taiwanese one. The school caters to children from first grade all the way to senior year of high school, a decision I will return to later.
None of the students intend to go to a Taiwanese university.
Because of this, my school is in the unique position of being able to eliminate all high stakes testing altogether. The biggest high stakes test in Taiwan is the Joint College Entrance Exam (JCEE), a required test for all students who wish to earn a college education (Alvarado 2016). This is high stakes testing indeed, especially in recent years, as Taiwanese people have found, like many of their counterparts in other countries, a changing reality where college degree has become the minimum requirement for jobs, where it had once been a high school diploma (Rampell, 2014). Failure to earn a college degree means being barred from a whole range of jobs, from entry-level jobs to internships.
My school effectively avoids the fate of all Taiwanese public schools. Public schools in Taiwan are virtually uniform in curriculum, with only minor differences depending on the purpose of the school. Secondary schools in Taiwan are split into three major types: academic, vocational, and junior college, the academic and junior college schools being college bound (Taiwan - Secondary Education). Before that are junior high schools, covering from the typical American grades of 7-9. Both junior high and high school also require entrance examinations (Taiwan - Secondary Education), which brings me back to the decision my current school made to cover grades 1-12: by doing so, they eliminate the need for entrance exams, thus eliminating two additional high stakes tests. Students at my school enjoy the certainty that, upon graduating from elementary or junior high, their entry into the next school is basically a given.
This is a far different reality from the children who attend a local elementary no more than a street down from my school; in sixth grade, their teachers will be focusing exclusively on passing entrance exams. Even if they pass, they may not be allowed to enter their desired schools, which are ranked by prestige and difficulty. Students are often left crying as they fail to see their assigned number, which are always publicly posted, on the passing board outside the school.
Unlike the junior high and high school entrance exams, the JCEE is a uniform test. Because of this, it has heavily affected the way schools in Taiwan are taught. Not only is the curriculum standardized, but even the textbooks are virtually identical, and within a school, that is most certainly the case (Lan 2009). This is a huge contrast to my school, where administrators and teachers get together annually to discuss which textbooks they wish to use (or whether textbooks are even necessary). Teachers at my school are free to teach as they wish, provided that they address Common Core standards. As there is no high stakes test at the end of the year or at the end of a student's career, teachers do not feel pressured to address it either. This is a sharp contrast to public schools in Taiwan, where a schools prestige is judged by how many students pass the JCEE with a high score (as this high score determines which university they are allowed to enter (Alvarado 2016). A teacher's worth is also judged based on how high her students score on the specific subject she teaches.
Due to the high stakes nature of the JCEE, the Taiwanese government did try to reform it. As of 2003, it allegedly no longer demands pure rote memorization (Taiwan - Secondary Education), allowing teacher recommendations to influence likelihood, but new research has shown that little has changed (Alvarado 2016). In my chats with students who attend public schools in Taiwan, teachers still practice direct teaching and rote memorization, using uniform textbooks that are followed to the letter. I described this style of learning to my mother, who many years ago was also a student in Taiwan 50 years ago.
She laughed, and told me that nothing had changed.
Of course, this does not mean that my school has no issues. There are numerous benefits to standardized testing. Our school has yet to develop a uniform curriculum, and teachers are not held accountable, even if we allegedly teach to Common Core standards (no effort is made to enforce this). Up until recently, teachers were therefore not informed of how well our students were grasping the material. We had no way of knowing if the students were learning what they were supposed to, and had no way to compare our students to students in other schools. This data is absolutely crucial if teachers and administrators are to inform both our teaching and curriculum development.
Because of this, we have brought in MAP testing, though instead of high stakes testing, we are using it as a diagnostic. So far the numbers we've seen are... rather grim. On top of that, because our students have never experienced any sort of standardized testing, all of them had trouble focusing on it, or even taking it seriously. Oftentimes they failed to behave appropriately. There is therefore the question of just how valid these test scores are. This is different from students who grew up with high stakes testing, who are accustomed to tests and understand proper behavior. It is our hope that with more regular testing that our students will slowly adjust. And in order to teach students to take the test seriously, teachers and administrators have proposed that the school begin using the test results to inform student placement into classes, and for severe cases, to be used to determine whether a student can remain in our school.
So what I have observed in Taiwan is a case of two wide extremes. For one, we have a situation where students seem to be constantly confronted with high stakes testing. At every major part of their lives, there is a chance that they may not be able to move on (in my mother's case, she was deeply ill the day she was due to take the high school entrance exam, and ended up at a vocational school instead). For the other, we have a case of virtually no stress, where the next step is taken for granted. This has led to a lackadaisical attitude toward academics, and the failure to take any testing seriously. Our school is therefore attempting to make our test higher stakes, if not high stakes. There may be some benefit to placing our students under deliberate stress.
Works Cited
Alvarado, J. (2016). The Unfairness of the College Entrance Examination in Taiwan. Fu Jen Catholic University Research,1-26. Retrieved February 8, 2018, from http://english.fju.edu.tw/word/LOD/105/401110339.pdf
Crook, S. (2006, August 18). Taiwan's international schools no longer havens for foreigners. Taiwan Today. Retrieved February 8, 2018, from https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=18,23,45,18&post=24025
E., E., & E. (n.d.). Taiwan - Secondary Education. Retrieved February 08, 2018, from http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1496/Taiwan-SECONDARY-EDUCATION.html
Lan, Shuan De. “The Making of Textbooks for High School Students in Taiwan.” Journal of Future Studies 20.2 (2009): 46-55.
Rampell, C. (2014, September 9). The College Degree Has Become the New High School Degree. The Washington Post. Retrieved February 8, 2018, from http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-37166541.html?refid=easy_hf
Being born and raised in the United States, one would think that I would be well familiar with high stakes testing. But I am not, at least, not in the form they are today. During my childhood, I had multiple encounters with standardized tests, which under Bush's much beloved No Child Left Behind (NCLB), would morph into the high stakes testing children all over the United States know today.
I took my first test in third grade, called the Iowa Test, and then the following year, took the MEAP (Michigan something or other), and then those two tests came and went irregularly throughout the rest of my school career. I did not know when they came, I did not know why they were given to me, nor did I care, and it seemed, neither did my teachers (this attitude must be baffling to teachers in the US today). I tested well, my parents took a look at it then shoved it into a dark corner, and that was it. In high school, I was told that my decent performance on the MEAP in my Junior year entitled me to a $2000 scholarship, which, realistically, is a drop in the bucket. Like all of my previous encounters with these kinds of tests, I ignored them.
And then I became a teacher.
I taught briefly in Philadelphia for a year, and soon discovered that testing happened not once in a blue moon, but almost every year. That year, I heard rumors of a new policy that had just been passed, which would make it that student scores on their standardized tests would affect their ability to graduate. I saw the tenseness and near panic of my students as they took their tests. Once, when I collected their scratch paper, I noticed comments written that were unrelated to the subject they were being tested in.
With a feeling of defeat, scrawled in lazy, loopy letters, was the message, "You win."
I left the US the following year to become a teacher at an international school.
High Stakes Testing in Taiwan and at My Current School
My current school is a private international school in Taiwan. The school is new, and the student body is still mainly Taiwanese (though there has been a recent increase in Koreans). A number of the students have lived overseas, but cannot, due to the lack of a foreign passport, attend an American international school (Crooks 2006). Their families, fearing that their children would have difficulty fitting back into a traditional Taiwanese school, elected on this one, a private school that purports to teach students using a western-style curriculum as opposed to a traditional Taiwanese one. The school caters to children from first grade all the way to senior year of high school, a decision I will return to later.
None of the students intend to go to a Taiwanese university.
Because of this, my school is in the unique position of being able to eliminate all high stakes testing altogether. The biggest high stakes test in Taiwan is the Joint College Entrance Exam (JCEE), a required test for all students who wish to earn a college education (Alvarado 2016). This is high stakes testing indeed, especially in recent years, as Taiwanese people have found, like many of their counterparts in other countries, a changing reality where college degree has become the minimum requirement for jobs, where it had once been a high school diploma (Rampell, 2014). Failure to earn a college degree means being barred from a whole range of jobs, from entry-level jobs to internships.
My school effectively avoids the fate of all Taiwanese public schools. Public schools in Taiwan are virtually uniform in curriculum, with only minor differences depending on the purpose of the school. Secondary schools in Taiwan are split into three major types: academic, vocational, and junior college, the academic and junior college schools being college bound (Taiwan - Secondary Education). Before that are junior high schools, covering from the typical American grades of 7-9. Both junior high and high school also require entrance examinations (Taiwan - Secondary Education), which brings me back to the decision my current school made to cover grades 1-12: by doing so, they eliminate the need for entrance exams, thus eliminating two additional high stakes tests. Students at my school enjoy the certainty that, upon graduating from elementary or junior high, their entry into the next school is basically a given.
This is a far different reality from the children who attend a local elementary no more than a street down from my school; in sixth grade, their teachers will be focusing exclusively on passing entrance exams. Even if they pass, they may not be allowed to enter their desired schools, which are ranked by prestige and difficulty. Students are often left crying as they fail to see their assigned number, which are always publicly posted, on the passing board outside the school.
Unlike the junior high and high school entrance exams, the JCEE is a uniform test. Because of this, it has heavily affected the way schools in Taiwan are taught. Not only is the curriculum standardized, but even the textbooks are virtually identical, and within a school, that is most certainly the case (Lan 2009). This is a huge contrast to my school, where administrators and teachers get together annually to discuss which textbooks they wish to use (or whether textbooks are even necessary). Teachers at my school are free to teach as they wish, provided that they address Common Core standards. As there is no high stakes test at the end of the year or at the end of a student's career, teachers do not feel pressured to address it either. This is a sharp contrast to public schools in Taiwan, where a schools prestige is judged by how many students pass the JCEE with a high score (as this high score determines which university they are allowed to enter (Alvarado 2016). A teacher's worth is also judged based on how high her students score on the specific subject she teaches.
Due to the high stakes nature of the JCEE, the Taiwanese government did try to reform it. As of 2003, it allegedly no longer demands pure rote memorization (Taiwan - Secondary Education), allowing teacher recommendations to influence likelihood, but new research has shown that little has changed (Alvarado 2016). In my chats with students who attend public schools in Taiwan, teachers still practice direct teaching and rote memorization, using uniform textbooks that are followed to the letter. I described this style of learning to my mother, who many years ago was also a student in Taiwan 50 years ago.
She laughed, and told me that nothing had changed.
Of course, this does not mean that my school has no issues. There are numerous benefits to standardized testing. Our school has yet to develop a uniform curriculum, and teachers are not held accountable, even if we allegedly teach to Common Core standards (no effort is made to enforce this). Up until recently, teachers were therefore not informed of how well our students were grasping the material. We had no way of knowing if the students were learning what they were supposed to, and had no way to compare our students to students in other schools. This data is absolutely crucial if teachers and administrators are to inform both our teaching and curriculum development.
Because of this, we have brought in MAP testing, though instead of high stakes testing, we are using it as a diagnostic. So far the numbers we've seen are... rather grim. On top of that, because our students have never experienced any sort of standardized testing, all of them had trouble focusing on it, or even taking it seriously. Oftentimes they failed to behave appropriately. There is therefore the question of just how valid these test scores are. This is different from students who grew up with high stakes testing, who are accustomed to tests and understand proper behavior. It is our hope that with more regular testing that our students will slowly adjust. And in order to teach students to take the test seriously, teachers and administrators have proposed that the school begin using the test results to inform student placement into classes, and for severe cases, to be used to determine whether a student can remain in our school.
So what I have observed in Taiwan is a case of two wide extremes. For one, we have a situation where students seem to be constantly confronted with high stakes testing. At every major part of their lives, there is a chance that they may not be able to move on (in my mother's case, she was deeply ill the day she was due to take the high school entrance exam, and ended up at a vocational school instead). For the other, we have a case of virtually no stress, where the next step is taken for granted. This has led to a lackadaisical attitude toward academics, and the failure to take any testing seriously. Our school is therefore attempting to make our test higher stakes, if not high stakes. There may be some benefit to placing our students under deliberate stress.
Works Cited
Alvarado, J. (2016). The Unfairness of the College Entrance Examination in Taiwan. Fu Jen Catholic University Research,1-26. Retrieved February 8, 2018, from http://english.fju.edu.tw/word/LOD/105/401110339.pdf
Crook, S. (2006, August 18). Taiwan's international schools no longer havens for foreigners. Taiwan Today. Retrieved February 8, 2018, from https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=18,23,45,18&post=24025
E., E., & E. (n.d.). Taiwan - Secondary Education. Retrieved February 08, 2018, from http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1496/Taiwan-SECONDARY-EDUCATION.html
Lan, Shuan De. “The Making of Textbooks for High School Students in Taiwan.” Journal of Future Studies 20.2 (2009): 46-55.
Rampell, C. (2014, September 9). The College Degree Has Become the New High School Degree. The Washington Post. Retrieved February 8, 2018, from http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-37166541.html?refid=easy_hf
Comments
Post a Comment