Dave De Ruysscher: Testing doesn't help classroom education

Spring is here in California and everyone knows what season it is: standardized testing time. It's the time of the year for all public schools to start administering the seemingly endless battery of tests known as the STAR assessment or California Standardized Testing and Reporting. The scores earned by students on these tests ultimately lead to their school's Academic Performance Index score, a measure by which all public educational institutions are judged. However, in the midst of all of this frenzy brought about by a No. 2 pencil, two things are lost: our students and a sense of reality.

I have been a teacher for the past 16 years in the San Juan Unified School District and from what I've seen, most students couldn't care less about these tests. The main reason is this: There is no incentive for them to do well. Why does it matter to them? In most cases, it doesn't. These tests are supposed to measure how well a student has mastered the state standards for their grade level, but why do state and elected officials think that the STAR test is the only way to measure what students have learned?

Measuring what a student has learned through only one form of assessment is inherently inaccurate and can easily give a false picture of what a student has or has not learned in the course of a school year. Students are not widgets. They are human beings, and they don't turn out in predictable and easily quantifiable ways. Expecting them to be otherwise is like something out of Huxley's dystopian novel "Brave New World."

Another thing to consider is outside influences that might affect the students and the way they test. I've had students in my classes who were homeless, or their parents incarcerated, or they recently had been physically or sexually assaulted. With all of this personal trauma in their lives, why would they care what is going on in class that day, especially if it is a standardized test, which has no real bearing on their grade or success in school? Anyone who thinks that a student with those kinds of issues is going to take the STAR test seriously is living in a fool's paradise.

The truth of the matter is this: Schools are where many problems of our society become glaringly apparent.

The real kicker is that a panel of education "experts" recently cobbled together by the governor think that the best way to measure a teacher's success in the classroom, and ultimately their compensation, is to base it on the test scores of the students in their classes. What a ridiculous idea.

Do you measure the success of dentists based on how many cavities that their patients get? Of course not. That would be absurd. Expecting teachers to be assessed and paid according to the test scores of their students would be equally absurd.

Teachers work hard at teaching and developing curriculum, but what the students do with the knowledge that is imparted is entirely up to them. Dentists can encourage their patients to practice good dental hygiene, but what if the patients choose not to?

As teachers, we encourage our students to work hard and study, but what if they choose not to? It is plainly obvious that lots of things are out of our control.

So as we plunge headlong into another season of bubble sheets and test booklets, perhaps it's time that we realize that these "one size fits all" tests don't really provide an accurate picture of student learning, and trying to have California's teachers be the scapegoats for their failure will, in the end, do more harm than good.