SHAKY HANDS: Students in CCSD and across the country participate in standardized testing many times throughout their education. “I’ve always known people who did poorly who were very strong students and for whatever reason just didn’t get how to take a standardized test,” Dr. Margaret Morgan, math department, said. “It’s an academic skill unto itself, being able to take standardized tests and for the people who just didn’t have that skill, I think it did a disservice to them.” Art by Eva Lucero.
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ll American students have experienced the symptoms: sweaty palms, sudden amnesia, general angst. A pillar of education, standardized tests have evaluated student performance for decades. However, questions of testing inequity have been growing since its advent, and thanks to COVID-19, the system is one of many forced to alter in the last two years. State-sanctioned performance exams Testing is ingrained into American achievement evaluation. The average U.S. student takes 112 standardized tests throughout their educational career from pre-K to 12th grade, whereas students in other countries whose students outperform U.S. students on global exams test an average of three times. As required by the United States Department of Education, Georgia administers a set of standardized tests unique to the state every year: the Milestones. Grades three through eight take the end of grade (EOG) exams; and grades nine through 12 take the end of course (EOC) tests, but only in some classes, like biology and economics. The tests measure students’ mastery of Georgia standards, and EOCs serve as final exams that determine 20% of final grades. An additional interim exam is given during the semester to measure progress towards preparedness for the EOC. A data analysis follows each interim administration. Bryan Moore, English depart-
ment chair, has participated in the process throughout his 26 years at Cedar Shoals. Every time interim results are released, he says he and his colleagues sit down with a coach to evaluate how their students scored on curriculum standards, though he doesn’t always put much value into results they examine. “I trust more what I see of their performance in my class. Some kids aren’t good test takers, some find it hard to motivate themselves for that. If every kid took the test as seriously as possible every time that might be some valid data, but there’s too many factors that go into it that I can’t draw too many conclusions. Especially in English, because we don’t think in a multiple choice kind of way,” Moore said. “You’re basically saying a two hour test given one time is supposed to be valid data instead of the performance of a kid over 18 weeks.” The socioeconomic and racial inequalities of testing are manifested in Clarke County School District, where Black students test an average of 3.4 grade levels below white students, and racial achievement gaps are double that of the state. In a school district with 79% students of color and nearly 50% of Black families and 45% of Hispanic families living in poverty, just one third of students were proficient on the Milestones in 2019. The only test in which CCSD matched the state average was the coordinate algebra EOC, taken by eighth
graders in the accelerated program. CCSD Director of Assessment Dr. Robert Ezekiel says inequity in testing is being addressed at the district and school levels. “Schools are focusing on equity. They are also focused on teaching the standard. Looking at achievement data, we’re looking at it by race, by gender, different demographics to determine who is performing and how they perform,” Ezekiel said. “Teachers are working collaboratively to design lessons to address any achievement gaps that are going on across the whole district.” Teachers receive curriculum standards from the state department of education that determines the topics they should cover in class. From there they work together to create lessons, materials and their own classroom assessments to teach the standards. The EOC assesses these standards, but teachers play no role in designing the questions. Dr. Margaret Morgan, math department, would prefer the exam be produced by her and her colleagues. “I don’t really understand how it’s written. I don’t understand what the purpose of the questions are,” Morgan said. “A departmental final where all the teachers decide on the questions or even a district-wide final where all the teachers get together and decide what’s going to be on it, I think that would have the same level of accountability with more transparency for teachers.”
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