Well-educated students

Well-educated students
Common goal is sometimes lost in bickering over CSAPs

Aug. 7, 2001

Colorado Gov. Bill Owens has offended educators by saying that students in some teachers’ classes spend more time watching movies than taking tests.

Owens was responding to criticisms and concerns of the Colorado Student Assessment Program mandated for Colorado public schools. The event was the Colorado Association of School Executives’ annual conference, and the specific complaint was that the state tests take too much time. Neither that criticism nor the governor’s response was particular relevant to the issue at hand: teaching children essential skills.

It doesn’t take too much education to analyze why school administrators are somewhat defensive about the CSAP tests; recently released results for students in most of their schools explain that quite clearly.

It also isn’t difficult to understand why Owens is losing patience. The rationale behind the program is that teachers and administrators must be able to assess clearly how well they are meeting the educational needs of students, and, further, that all students in the state should be taught the basics needed to function in today’s world. Performance in those basics is, in theory, what the CSAP exams measure. Time and energy spent debating the results cannot be devoted to improving them.

The argument that instructors must "teach to the test" is one that Owens has countered many times, saying that teaching to the test means teaching to the state standards. If the testing instruments are well designed, which some educators doubt, students who are competent in the skills we expect our schools to teach will do well on the tests.

Our students have not been scoring well, though, and therein lies the problem. Owens sees the need for more education to take place in Colorado’s schools, and in saying that, he has led teachers to believe he’s accusing them of not doing their jobs. Instead of an attitude of cooperation, in which all concerned about education can discuss ways to improve the reading, writing, math, science and social science knowledge of Colorado children, we now have an adversarial situation. Too many of the individuals involved are arguing about who’s to blame for the low test scores, which is not the same as talking about better education.

Surely everyone knows better. Likewise, everyone knows that education is not a simple pursuit and improving it won’t be a matter of obvious answers to easy questions. Poking at Bill Owens isn’t the solution.

Neither is altering the test. That’s not to say it shouldn’t be refined to better reflect the skills students actually possess. The test, however, is just the messenger; shooting it won’t render students any better at reading or math. Yes, it’s just one view of a complicated system. Yes, it probably favors middle-class non-minority students (and in that way, may reflect reality). Yes, it lacks easy ways to follow longitudinal progress.

However, to argue that the CSAP provides no useful information is quite a stretch of the imagination. At the very least, it tells us that too many students are not doing as well as we’d hoped they were.

That is the problem Owens wants corrected, and he’s not alone. Educators share that goal. Parents share that goal. Business leaders share that goal. Who doesn’t? Owens needs to show maturity and leadership, and a good way might be to stop sniping at people who, while they may be reluctant to admit it, actually are on his side.