Why ACT Should Replace TNReady

The testing landscape for Tennessee’s students will hopefully change for the better in the near future. There are five bills pending in our state legislature concerning standardized testing: HB 262, HB 263/SB 204, HB 1018/SB 632, HB 1043/SB 2, and HB 1251. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the frustrated voices of teachers, students, and parents are being heard. It’s a problem when my students will spend more time this year taking a standardized test in English 3 than I did taking the GRE exam to get into graduate school (225 minutes) or than Betsy DeVos did in her confirmation hearings to become the U.S. Secretary of Education (169 minutes).

Four of these bills intend to replace TNReady with the ACT or SAT exam, either by force or by choice, depending on the wording of the particular bill. The fifth bill, introduced by Rep. Butt and Sen. Bowling, does not specify a testing platform but instead limits the amount of hours that a student is allowed to spend taking a standardized test depending on that student’s grade level. While the number of hours per grade level are completely arbitrary, it is well-intentioned.

Despite the Tennessee Department of Education significantly reducing the length of TNReady, it’s not anywhere close to good enough. My English 3 students will spend 230 minutes taking all four subparts of TNReady--and that’s a reduction of 120 minutes from the testing time on last year’s test. I support the idea of allowing--not forcing--school districts to replace TNReady with ACT.

The entire ACT exam takes 175 minutes, which includes four subjects. The English and Reading subsections are a combined 80 minutes. These testing times are much more reasonable. Replacing TNReady with ACT will lead to a significant decrease in testing time at the end of the school year, which means I get to spend more class time providing authentic learning opportunities for my students.

Additionally, high school students have the option to take the ACT test several times a year. High school students currently get to take the test twice for free. Unlike TNReady, students have the opportunity to retake the test and get better.

Also unlike TNReady, the ACT has existed for almost 60 years and is both valid and reliable. We will not know for many years if TNReady truly measures what it says is measures, and if it can do so on a consistent basis. Teachers and school districts are being evaluated based on how well students perform on a newly created state test. It’s a completely unfair and illegitimate practice.

Unlike TNReady, a plethora of ACT test questions is readily available. No additional professional development will be required because teachers already know what is on the test. That, in turn, will increase student proficiency on the ACT, which will lead to more students getting college scholarship money and will make myself, my school, and my district all look like we are doing an amazing job of preparing our students for college. Finally, many other states are already using the ACT Aspire suite of assessments for their statewide assessment. Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Wyoming all use multiple ACT assessments in their states. It’s time for Tennessee do the right thing for our students and follow suit.

2016: A Year in Review

2016 has been an amazing year, and it has served as another reminder to take the bad with the good. I would like to reflect on the top five educational stories, both personally and as a public school teacher in Tennessee.

At the top of my list is having the privilege of attending the national teacher of the year ceremony at The White House. I traveled to The White House because I was recognized as one of America’s most distinguished educators, and I participated in honoring Ms. Jahana Hayes as the national teacher of the year. The ceremony itself only lasted 30 minutes, beginning with a short speech from Ms. Hayes, who is a history teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Waterbury, Connecticut. Her passion-filled opening remarks set a powerful tone and her enthusiasm for the teaching profession was palpable.

On the way back to Nashville, I had time to reflect on attending this absolutely sublime White House event. Continuing the spirit of this ceremony the best way I know how, I am committed to help my fellow educators elevate and express their voices and tell their stories. Teachers matter. No one knows how to improve the educational landscape better than us. We are the experts, and when we speak in unison, educators have a remarkably strong voice. It begins with educators telling their own stories and having honest conversations with stakeholders about what’s working in our profession and what’s not.

Next on my list is the complete meltdown of TNReady. Though not completely their fault, the Tennessee Department of Education took a black eye on this one. The failure of TNReady sent shock waves throughout the state’s public education system. Elementary and middle school students didn’t even get to take the exam, while high school students across the state went through the motions of taking the test and didn’t take it seriously. A state law was passed holding teachers harmless on their evaluations from these test scores, but this law doesn’t apply to schools and school districts. Meanwhile, TDOE changed testing vendors from Measurement Inc. to Questar and has some significant rebuilding to do in terms of its efficacy.

Number three on my list is something that happened within the last few days, when TDOE released its plan for public review of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). In case you haven’t been following, ESSA is the federal law that replaced No Child Left Behind, and it requires each state to develop its own plan on how it will meet the needs of its own students. Along with three other teachers from the high school, I recently attended a town hall meeting in Nashville where Commissioner McQueen and some of her TDOE cohorts explained the overview of their plan. I believe that TDOE’s ESSA plan needs some revision, but, overall, it sends a clear message that “all means all”--that TDOE is committed to educating all of Tennessee’s students, regardless of whether they are rich or poor, receiving special education services, or English Language Learners who just moved here from another country.

Number four on my list is the revelation from TDOE that the state’s science scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are “above the national average for the first time ever, doubled the national average for student growth, eliminated the performance gap between male and female students, narrowed the performance gap between white and black students in both grades, and narrowed the performance gap between white and Latino students in fourth grade.” Tennessee had previously scored above the national average in English Language Arts and math. This announcement is further proof that the public education system in Tennessee is on the right track. Historically, Tennessee has ranked at or near the bottom in public education.

Rounding out my top five education stories of 2016 is Mr. Trump’s appointment of Betsy DeVos as the future U.S. Secretary of Education. Putting a pro-charter and pro-voucher champion at the head of the nation’s public schools will certainly have “yuge” ramifications. One only needs to look at the education systems in Michigan and Louisiana (both are below the national average and dropping) to understand the devastating effects of diverting money from public schools in the name of school choice.

TNReady, Reimagined

Most people are probably familiar with the TNReady debacles of last school year (or seven months ago this calendar year), the reverberations of which are still being felt in school buildings across the state. In response to this situation, the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) has hired a new testing company, Questar, to administer TNReady, and they have decided to phase-in online testing over a period of several years. In response to parents’ and educators’ concerns about the length of the tests, they have reduced testing times as well. From a teacher’s perspective, I would argue that all of these changes are positive, and a step in the right direction; but we can’t, and shouldn’t, be satisfied.

On the surface, it seems wonderful that elementary students will spend almost two hours and high school students approximately three hours less time testing than last year. The other side of that same coin, however, is that, starting in third grade, Tennessee students will still spend nearly eight hours of testing time in English/Language Arts, math, science, and social studies. To be fair, it will be spread out over the course of several days and among ten subtests in the four subject areas. Wait! Did I just say TEN subtests for a total of almost EIGHT hours? Is that really necessary?

Middle school students will take the same number of subtests, but the times are a tad longer, and by the time a student enters high school--especially junior year--it becomes especially ridiculous. Most high school juniors are enrolled in English 3, Algebra II, Chemistry, and U.S. History. All of these courses have a TNReady or End-of-Course exam. As such, a high school junior will spend nearly TEN hours testing in these four subjects, across a combined ELEVEN subtests!

The new federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which goes into effect next school year, does actually lessen the testing requirements from No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. Under ESSA, students in grades 3-8 must still be tested every year in English/Language Arts and math, and in science, once in grades 3-5 and one more time in grades 6-9. High school students are required to take one English, one math, and one science test. Tests in other subjects and additional tests in these three subjects can be given at the state’s discretion.  

While I sadly recognize that standardized testing will never completely go away, I have a solution to students being over-tested: Shorten the tests students are required to take and give them as few as possible. What would this look like, exactly?

In elementary and middle school, I propose keeping the social studies tests and eliminating: (a) two English/Language Arts subtests (keeping the writing test); (b) one math subtest; (c) and one science subtest. Student progress can still be monitored with shorter, more efficiently created tests. This would reduce the testing time from 8 hours to approximately 5.5 hours in grades 3-8. All of these tests should be aligned with the ACT so students will be prepared for the next level. Currently, there’s no alignment between ACT and TNReady.

For high school, I would recommend keeping the U.S. History test, but shortening it to two subtests totaling 90 minutes for the writing and objective components combined. As for the other subjects, school districts should have the option to use the ACT, which is already a requirement for 11th graders. This one exam would satisfy the federal testing requirement, it only takes about 3.5 hours, and students are now allowed one free retake. Otherwise, give the TNReady English III test (keeping the writing test but eliminating two of the subtests), give a 90 minute math test at the end of the junior year that combines Algebra I, Algebra II, and Geometry, and give a 90 minute science test that combines elements of biology and chemistry. There is no need for each of these subjects to have its own test because, again, student progress can be monitored with shorter, more efficiently created tests. The ACT and SAT have been doing it for decades.

Reimagining TNReady in this manner also makes it impossible to count it as part of a student’s report card grade; so, to ensure that they take the tests seriously, I recommend that a basic proficiency level be set on each test for students to receive their high school diplomas, with a requirement that students be proficient in at least three out of the four core subjects. After all, shouldn’t students have at least basic reading comprehension, writing, mathematics, science, and U.S. history knowledge when they graduate from high school?

It's Time to Focus

It has been an honor to have participated in Coffee County High School’s first faculty show, Arsenic and Old Lace. Frankly, a school the size of the one I teach at should have an active theater program, and I am glad that I have played a part in helping make that happen. When I took theater in high school, it had a profound effect on my self-confidence and I credit that experience for beginning to bring this natural introvert out of his shell. I want to thank everyone who came to see Arsenic and Old Lace. The audiences have been wonderful, and the cast has had fun feeding from your energy.

With the play now behind me, it’s time for me to do what I hope I do best: plan lessons and focus on my students. I surveyed my students in the first week of school so that I can learn about their likes and dislikes, as well as their access to internet and technology outside of school. In this survey, I learned that most of my 11th grade students are into music, animals, and sports, followed closely by nature, video games, and watching TV. When I asked them who are their heroes, real or fantasy, moms and dads made the top of the list--and it wasn’t even very close. If given a choice, they’d mostly prefer to read mystery/suspense or horror/thriller stories and two-thirds of them are returning from summer break not currently reading a book for pleasure. My students come from a background of strongly disliking reading. Unfortunately, school does that to students, and I am hoping to change that. In terms of technology, 86% report having reliable internet access at home, with another 5% who claim they will have it soon, and of the 9% who do not have reliable internet at home, half of them are capable of going somewhere that does have internet.

All of this information is crucial for me to know as I plan my lessons. There are many things that I can’t control in my classroom, like the bell schedule, the state standards, and for which state and national tests I must prepare my students (if it were up to me, I would have them take either TNReady or ACT, not both, but that’s another discussion). I have complete control over how the information is presented to my students and, because I want them to grow as learners and as human beings, I need to present the information in such a way that allows them to connect this new information to something they already know. It’s not an easy task, but this challenge is part of what draws me to the classroom and it’s absolutely what makes educators the professionals that we are. Differentiating lessons goes beyond changing the difficulty of the content for different learners. It also includes changing the activities based on their interests.

Every good teacher will also find a way to include their own interests into the lessons. When students see my own passion for the content, it increases their enthusiasm, even if they’re not inherently enthusiastic in the topic. Something that I have always been passionate about is current events. Ever since I was a young boy, I have always been interested in what’s going on around the country and around the world. I strongly believe that my students need to know current events, because they are mostly oblivious to them and they are a year or two away from becoming registered voters. Therefore, I will start something new this year called “Article of the Week.” I will seek out current events articles for my students to read that thematically relate to the content of the course at the time. The students will read, annotate, summarize, and provide their own analysis of each article. At the end of the week, I will facilitate a short class discussion over the article so that they have an opportunity to learn from each other.

Thomas Jefferson believed that “An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” My overall goal is that, by the time my students leave my class and graduate into society, they will have a rekindled spirit for learning new things, which includes reading books for pleasure.

What We Learned – and Where We Can Improve – on Testing in Tennessee

The following blog was written by Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education, Dr. Candice McQueen on June 7th and has been edited for length. I appreciate her candor and her effort to communicate with interested stakeholders. If you would like to read the full version, you can find it on Classroom Chronicles at http://tnclassroomchronicles.org/learned-can-improve-testing-tennessee/ Below is a selfie that I took with Dr. McQueen at a recent Hope Street Group convening.

Today’s blog kicks off a summer series through which I want to share some of my thoughts on assessment. In my conversations with more than 10,000 teachers and parents over the past year and a half, and through the various letters and emails I’ve received, testing has been the issue about which I’ve received the most feedback – and understandably so.

There are very few people who would argue that no statewide check on student knowledge, skills, and standards attainment is the best direction for Tennessee. On the other hand, there are few people who believe the current assessment program in Tennessee is exactly right. Most of us are somewhere in the middle and are looking to continuously improve our testing program while not “throwing out the baby with the bath water.”

I am one of these individuals. I pledge to both create better tests aligned to Tennessee’s rigorous standards while also looking for opportunities to improve test structure, time, delivery, logistics, and scheduling. I ask that you engage with me in this conversation knowing that we are partners in this work.

As I’ve considered where we are and what we can do to move forward productively, I asked three questions. First, what is the goal of a new and improved test? It is meant to better show students’ ability and progress on both the breadth and depth of the content. This year’s test included questions that pointed to students’ ability to problem solve, think critically, write, and read more deeply.

Second, what did we accomplish this year in the midst of delivery challenges? This year, we were unable to fully provide TNReady in the way we expected: online for all third through 11th graders.  But we accomplished a great deal...new and better test questions, navigating challenges related to online testing, learning how to better structure the testing experience, and re-discovering that our best way to continually improve is to listen – to our students, our educators, our parents, and our administrators.

Finally, how will we recover and what will next year look like? Our goals remain the same: ensure we have an assessment that better tests the reality of students’ content knowledge and skills, maximize instructional time, and deliver the tests as thoughtfully as possible as we move more online.

To this end, the department has already announced some changes – including reducing overall testing time. Furthermore, we are committed to phasing in online testing in a smart and reliable fashion that puts students first. Students deserve to be able to show what they know in a way that is as seamless and non-stressful as possible, and then to know how they are doing in their big-picture progress toward college and workforce readiness. Students also deserve the best instruction and rich learning experiences, rather than learning how to game questions on a test. This is what TNReady was always about and this is what we commit to achieving.

In Holy Matrimony

Spring is here, summer is right around the corner, and with it the busiest time of year for weddings. Interesting fact: The average length for an engagement is 14 months before the lucky couple ties the knot. Unfortunately, the divorce rate still hovers around 50 percent.

In the education world, this time of year usually means state testing, but it came early this year--the last week of April--for the schools that actually had a state test to give. Like dozens of other states around the country, Tennessee is experiencing commitment issues to our state’s standardized test.

Since the passage of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Law in 2002 which forced states to adopt a statewide standardized test, Tennessee has wed and dissoluted three different times. Three uniquely different tests in 14 years may not sound too horrible, but much of this change has occurred recently. Since 2014, we have parted ways with TCAP/End of Course and had an annulment with the PARCC Assessment because they’re not from around here and they were in partnerships with other states, which we knew about the entire time. We got so upset at PARCC (It wasn’t them, it was us) that we passed a law stating that we would never allow ourselves to date them again--and that went for PARCC’s twin, Smart Balanced, too.

The Tennessee Legislature, who is largely responsible for creating the current educational pandemonium, and the Tennessee Department of Education are at an interesting and vitally important crossroads. The state’s attachment to TNReady only lasted a year, and few would argue against this separation.

There are many, many more testing fish in the sea. One possible option is to stick with the TNReady test that we spent time and money creating, and find a different vendor for administering it. Educators would know what to expect from the test, and most of this year’s test questions are going to be released over the summer. This option reminds me of arranged marriage. We would kind of know what we are getting into, and it could work out nicely--or not.

Another option is to cut our losses and use the ACT Aspire suite of assessments. On one side, this would mean another drastic change for educators across the state because they would have to learn how to prepare students to pass yet another state test that’s substantially different from the previous one. It will be more expensive to administer than TNReady and possibly more than if the state had stayed with PARCC. The ACT has a horrible track record of predicting future college success, which is rather ironic for a college preparatory exam. On the other side, we would know exactly what we are getting, and there should be no administrative issues like we ran into with TNReady. High school students have taken the ACT for a very long time, and there are other states who use the ACT Aspire suite of assessments for elementary through high school. Also, due to its relative predictability, it’s easier to prepare students to pass it, and the ACT is already part of the school report card that is published every year.

The tricky thing about this decision is that Tennessee has almost no time to make a good one. All of the state’s eggs were in the TNReady basket, and an accountability measure for students must exist for the upcoming school year.

Meanwhile, teachers across the state are nervous because of the unknown and are screaming for consistency. Like it or not (and we don’t), a significant portion of our jobs as educators is to ensure that students are prepared to pass the state test. Teachers’ reputations as professionals and even our livelihoods are at stake. The constantly changing testing landscape diminishes the value of any state test that will come in the future. A different test every year to every other year means that teachers, as well as the state, will have a hard time tracking yearly student progress, thereby preventing any reliable comparisons among schools and districts. I sincerely hope that whatever the state decides to do, it’s a marriage that will last.

Keep Calm and Stay Positive

Unless you are supremely talented, it takes several tries to master a new skill. As a teacher, my lessons are sometimes better in the afternoons than in the mornings because I’ve had an opportunity to tweak them throughout the day. This same concept applies to field of education in general.

Five years ago, Tennessee adopted the Common Core State Standards for math and Language Arts. This change was desperately needed because the previous state standards were among the weakest in the country and high schools were graduating students en masse without the skill sets needed to successfully enter college or the work force. Since that time, CCSS has undergone a lengthy public review process in which nearly three-fourths of the comments for revision were made by experts--teachers across the state who have been teaching the standards the past several years. The new version of these standards has just been released, and they are much improved. The language in the standards is easier to understand and the layout on the page also makes more sense as it better allows educators to see the progression of each standard through the different grade levels. It took a few years for the state to get it right, but our children are greatly benefitting from the process of implementing higher standards. I’ve seen it with my own fifth grade daughter.

In case you haven’t heard about the latest TNReady debacle, after the Tennessee Department of Education decided to pull the plug on online testing and move to paper and pencil testing, Measurement Inc. has once again failed to deliver the test materials to schools on time. This happened during the first part of TNReady back in February, and Measurement Inc. has done little to keep from repeating the same mistake again. This time, all high schools have their materials but elementary and middle schools across the state vary widely in the amount of materials they have received, and the Department of Education has vowed that they will not push back the testing window--meaning, if the materials don’t arrive in time, then no test will be given at all.

Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education, Dr. Candice McQueen, inherited the contract with Measurement Inc. due to poor decision-making by the Tennessee Legislature to scrap the PARCC Assessment (whose online assessment worked without any glitches this year) in favor of a cheaper option that isn’t controlled by testing giant Pearson. Dr. McQueen has said publicly that she has lost all faith in Measurement Inc., and House Democrats have called for the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury to look into how much the state has paid this testing company that is having a horrible time successfully administering a test. Additionally, after hearing the cries from parents and teachers that TNReady is too long (and it is), changes will be made next year to shorten it, but it’s unclear at this time what that will look like.

It’s a shame that Tennessee’s testing situation is such a mess, because TNReady is a greatly improved assessment over the previous TCAP/EOC assessments. Instead of entirely being multiple-choice, TNReady requires students to explain their answers in writing and it contains multiple-response questions that have more than one correct answer. It moves beyond the simple recall of information to analyzing the concept behind why the correct answer is what it is.

TNReady is in its first year of implementation and it is too early to start reaching for the panic button. Because of Measurement Inc.’s blunders, TNReady will not count this year as part of teachers’ evaluations (though it could still be factored in down the road) and it will not impact students’ report card averages. Tennessee House Democrats have again called for a three-year moratorium on holding districts accountable on TNReady measures. This common-sense solution will hopefully gain some traction in the next legislative session because, like what happened with the standards, it will take some time to get the kinks worked out of TNReady. This will hopefully mean that the state will find a new vendor for TNReady because Measurement Inc. have proven themselves more than incompetent. In the meantime, let’s take a collective deep breath. The education system in Tennessee is vastly improving. This process takes time, and there will be speed bumps on the road to success, despite everyone’s best intentions.

Are you TNReady for the ACT?

High school students (and some 8th grade students) have the option to take the ACT test several times a year. Currently, high school juniors get to take the test once for free, and there is a bill pending in the legislature that will allow them to retake the test a second time for free. For students, doing well on the ACT means financial aid to a university somewhere. For high schools and school districts, the ACT is one of many accountability measures that supposedly determines how well-prepared students are for post-secondary education. 

I adamantly challenge the premise that ANY test can adequately measure a student’s readiness for life after high school. All state-mandated tests are one-time snapshots of a student’s ability and none of them require the student to demonstrate knowledge in a real-world context. Many recent studies have concluded that there is no correlation between a student’s ACT score and future post-secondary success. Because of that, there is a growing trend among universities around the country to weigh other criteria heavier than a student’s ACT score. This trend has not, and may not, hit Tennessee with any great force.

Tennessee’s new TNReady exam is a much improved method to determine what students have actually learned because it requires them to go beyond simply figuring out the correct answer. They have to apply concepts and know how they arrived at that answer. With that said, there are several problems with TNReady: it’s too long, it allows Tennessee to compare itself with only two other states who use Measurement Inc.--Florida and Utah, it may not be developmentally appropriate for elementary students (especially in math), and it’s not reliable as evidenced by the online computer system crashing on the first day of testing. 

To solve this problem, Senator Janice Bowling has introduced SB 1984 in the legislature, which, if passed, allows local school districts the option to use the ACT Aspire suite of assessments instead of TNReady. Tullahoma City Schools, Maury County Schools, Maryville City Schools, Coffee County Schools and Oak Ridge Schools have already expressed support for the bill. There are many advantages of switching to ACT over TNReady. 

It will probably lead to a fewer number of tests and less time spent testing students. This equates to more class time for teachers and students, which means more opportunities for authentic learning. The ACT has existed for almost 60 years and is reliable. Little to no additional professional development is required to transition to ACT because of the plethora of test questions available, which also make this an easier test to prepare my students for. That, in turn, will increase student proficiency on the ACT, which will lead to more students getting college scholarship money and will make myself, my school, and my district all look like we are adequately “preparing” our students for college. Finally, many other states are using the ACT Aspire suite of assessments for their statewide assessment. Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Wyoming all use multiple ACT assessments in their states. Wouldn’t it be better for Tennessee to compare itself to 11 other states instead of 2.

I support Senator Bowling’s bill because I believe it is a step in the right direction. However, it’s important to understand some of the negative ramifications of replacing TNReady with ACT as it is outlined in this bill.

To begin with, it’s more expensive and individual school districts would have to pay for it. In the fiscal note for SB 1984 it states a few interesting things: the state will not purchase the suite of ACT tests, it will cost local school districts approximately $20 per student if they want to switch from TNReady to ACT, and, as a result, “it is estimated that few, if any, would elect to do so.” It appears that only school districts with a wealthy tax base could afford such a move.

Secondly, in this age of accountability, if some districts give the ACT while the rest of the state continues on with TNReady exams, it then becomes nearly impossible to accurately compare districts and teachers with each other, which is the purpose of TVAAS. In case you aren’t aware, Tennessee’s TVAAS model predicts students’ future test scores based their scores on previous test scores. How well teachers meet or exceed these predictions affect the entire education landscape--from the school report cards that are published annually to evaluating an individual teacher’s effectiveness, which is sometimes used to determine teacher salary and possibly whether or not the teacher is retained.

Here is my advice to the legislature as they are considering this bill. Admit that you made a mistake in contracting with Measurement Inc. and wash your hands of them. Then, purchase the ACT Aspire suite of assessments for Tennessee’s students instead of relying on individual districts to pay for it. It’s what you should have done in the first place after deciding to replace the PARCC Assessment. Cheaper is not always better.