Fresh ideas: It's 'testing month' in Nevada

Can you remember the range of emotions from boredom, to nervousness, to the sheer terror of test-taking days when you were in school? Did you experience the frantic internal flutter as the teacher reached for the stack of answer sheets to distribute with a last-minute warning to put your name at the top and "try your best"?

Tests still send shock waves of apprehension through me with internal flashing red lights and sirens. I watch as my university students' behavior shifts when I announce an upcoming test: the difference in their suddenly straight-backed postures, and in their facial expressions, from glazed-over to anxious alarm.

Late September through October could perhaps be proclaimed "Testing Month" in Nevada. Many tests are given to Nevada students, including the fourth- and eighth-grade writing proficiency examinations. These tests are decidedly different from the statewide/national tests many of us may remember from our own school days, where, if it couldn't be asked in a multiple choice or true-false format, it wasn't tested at all.

Our writing skills were measured, not by how well we could write, but by how well we could pick out or "guess" where the mistake(s) might be in a number of sentence or paragraph choices. Today, students actually write. They are given a prompt to guide their written responses and they receive four scores from Nevada teacher-readers, indicating the merits of their pieces of writing in: ideas and development, organization, voice and conventional use of standardized English.

This month, 4th graders will take the first writing assessment examination in their school careers. While this test is part of the proficiency examination program, it is not designed to measure "proficiency" of 8- and 9-year-old writers, but rather to assist teachers and students with writing instruction in their classrooms. The four trait scores give students a language to help them identify and understand the traits of good writing, their own as well as others. Then, as practicing writers they can self-assess, evaluate and improve.

One of the dangers in using this test as a measure of proficiency is the senselessness of labeling a beginning writer "inadequate" in a skill we want them to practice and craft.

Think about the process. They began in first grade forming letters, writing words and developing sentence sense. In second grade they learned to craft sentences and in third they worked on simple paragraphs. So, by the second month of fourth grade, the end of three years of language arts instruction in beginning reading and writing, we expect them to be proficient? They are not proficient writers yet; if they were, why would they need the additional eight years of learning and instruction?

While doing poorly on a test may motivate some students to try harder in a subject, it simply discourages others. Adding social and peer pressure to 9-year-olds with the intent of increasing their motivation to do well in school may, in fact, be counterproductive to our goals of encouraging and assisting young writers in improving their writing skills. Classrooms need to be safe places to practice, make mistakes, and learn from them.

The current criteria for analytic trait scoring is that, in order to be "proficient," students will receive a passing score (minimum 3 on a 5-point scale) in all four traits. Approximately 30 percent of fourth graders are able to meet that criterion.

Are we going to run 5-inch headlines and engage in more hand-wringing about our school system? Not when we realize that with the same instrument given in eighth grade, approximately 55 percent of our students are at the proficient level. By the time they take the High School Proficiency Examination in Writing in 11th grade, approximately 86 percent pass the first time, and approximately 96 percent pass it by the time they graduate from high school.

Is this an indication that fourth-grade or eighth-grade students are inadequate? No, it simply explains the developmental process of becoming a writer. Like any skill, it becomes easier and better with practice and instruction.

Am I suggesting we eliminate the fourth grade writing test? Absolutely not. I believe tests often drive instruction and that the early writing tests encourage teachers and students to pay more attention to practicing writing in their classrooms; and the analytic trait model provides some important information to help students in developing their writing skills.

I am, however, reminding us all of the consequences of using this test or any test for the wrong purposes. A single test, any test, is no more than a snapshot of a student's performance on any given day. To obtain a true picture of anyone's writing skills, many examples over an extended period of time are necessary.

As teachers break out this year's party favors for "Testing Month" - No. 2 pencils, soft pink erasers and scantron answer sheets - the real focus must be on learning to become life-long learners, not learning for the sake of surviving tests. The test must be the means to the end, not the end itself.

(If you are interested in writing prompts used in Nevada Proficiency in Writing Examinations go to http://www.nsn.k12.nv.us/nvdoe/ and scroll to Leadership Teams and then under the Standards, Curricula and Assessments title, click on Writing Assessment Site. One of the links on that page will provide you with all the prompts that have been used previously in Nevada writing examinations.)

Joan Taylor is assessment consultant with the Nevada Department of Education.