National Assessment Program or Who Put These Idiots In Charge??

I know I have let my little blog garden go untended for a long time but facebook seems to meet so many needs in terms of posting a quick photo, making a quip or keeping in touch, that I rarely feel the need to wander through here anymore. Today however I am up for a rant, and professionalism and test security mean that facebook is an inappropriate forum.

National Testing: Oh. My. Goodness. Where do I start?

At recess this morning I hailed one of the young pupils I teach.
"How's the NAPLAN going?" I asked her cheerfully.
"Pretty good," she replied nonchalantly.
"It's no big deal, is it?" I hurriedly added, realising too late that by asking about it, I was indeed making it a big deal.
"No," she smiled,"Mum says it's really testing the teachers."

The idea of testing a cohort of children across a nation on the same day at the same time with the same test, is one which has provoked heated debate throughout the years. Issues of student (or parent!) stress; teaching to the test; relevance; using the tests to drive funding and the dubious nature of what the tests actually tell us, rear their heads again and again in media and staff room alike. As a Special Ed teacher my concern has always been with the damage these tests may do to the self worth of pupils whom we know to be struggling.
 "Oh let him have a go," one of the teachers in the UK would say to me, of a dyslexic child who was still struggling with basic sight words. Why? I ask. It's like saying "Let's shoot him and see if he bleeds." DUH!!!!!! We KNOW he isn't going to do well. Why set him up for failure???

The Australian testing regime insists that all students, except those with 'severe and complex' disabilities, are expected to attempt the tests and schools are instructed to provide sanctioned 'adjustments', which will ensure  that the tests are accessible to all. We are advised that it is not our role to counsel parents against including their children in these tests, but to make provision such that everyone can 'have a go'. And be judged. Sorry, did I say that out loud? As a result, children with Language Disorders, severe Dyslexia and yes, Autism, are expected to complete the national tests.

So if this is a test of the teachers, to see how well (or how poorly) we teach, why can't we 'teach to the test'? Then you'd know who was doing it well wouldn't you!? No? OK, so it must really be a test of the children, of what they know, or what they can do, right? So why is my severe dyslexic sitting this test, this test which includes spelling, identifying misspellings and providing correct spellings, when we know, we know in agonising and frustrating detail, just how little he knows about any of that. We DO know that he knows twice as much as when he started last year because we have him on a special program and have been working in close consultation with parents and class teachers to painstakingly measure his micro 'skills growth', but I'm pretty sure that's not going to show up on your test.

But that is not all of it. One of the scintillating joys our pupils must endure is the Writing test.  In this test they will demonstrate that they can generate ideas, structure a written text, write in sentences, proofread, use appropriate, evocative language, tell a story or argue a point. Now get this: the stimulus material provided by the testing authorities is the same for all four tested grade levels. Yes, you heard me correctly. The eight year old Year 3s and the fourteen year old Year 9s get the same topic and the same wordy set of instructions. Is there a picture? A catchy title? Some ideas to draw from? NO. In fact, as teachers we are prohibited from discussing the topic with the pupils, except to re-direct them to their instruction sheet. There will be no brain storming session, no wordbank of useful vocab, in short, none of the usual teaching which we would undertake when introducing a task of this nature. Imagine a football team turning up for the game, after a regime of directed training, and the coach telling them that they would need to check the rulebook if they wanted to know anything about how (or where) to play the game that day. Oh and by the way, you can't talk to your team mates either.

Now comes my favourite part: the topic for writing this year was.......(wait for it)

"Change a Rule or a Law": Think of a rule or a law that you would like to change and convince the reader of your opinion. You must be changing the rule for the better.

Let's put aside for a moment the fact that at least 50% of the Year 3 pupils couldn't think of a law or a rule they would like to change (no brainstorming remember). Let us instead consider the plight of my Year 3 Autistic boy remembering that one of the cornerstone characteristics of Autism, as described in the Diagnostic Manual (v5) is:

Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, :

              Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns or     

              verbal nonverbal behavior (e.g., extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with

              transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat 

              food every day).

AND THEY WANTED THESE CHILDREN TO WRITE ABOUT CHANGING THE RULES??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Really! Who ARE these people and what right do they have to judge any of us?

I Am The Pencil Nazi

NAPLAN.

First you have to understand NAPLAN.

The National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy, aka NAPLAN, aka Basic Skills testing, was introduced in Australia in 2008. Pupils are tested in years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in: Reading, Writing, Language Conventions (spelling and grammar) and Numeracy (with and without calculators). The tests take place over the same
3 days, in a prescribed order, across the entire country. As of this year, results are posted on the controversial My Schools website. Rightly or wrongly, they are a big deal.

So, in each school you have to have a NAPLAN coordinator and, for my sins, at our school it happens to be me. There's a lot of receiving, counting and securing test papers; briefing test supervisors, arranging timetables and rooms and, most importantly, dealing with the pencils.
When we were first introduced to the running of the tests, the powers that be recommended providing all writing materials for the pupils so that none were disadvantaged (or able to avoid the test) through lack of writing materials. Therefore, I duly purchased 90+ plastic bags, pencils and rubbers and numbered the whole lot of them, making up packs to supply to each classroom during testing.

At the end of the first year I was approximately 10 pencils down. This included bags coming back with missing pencils or simply, bags missing altogether! What were they doing? Eating them??? I sighed the sigh of inevitability and went about topping up my losses. At the end of last year, I put the whole lot into a cupboard with the intention of checking them later. Of course, later turned out to be the beginning of the week of the 2010 testing . Imagine my horror then as the morning before the start of the tests I counted everything and realised there were over THIRTY missing!!!!!!!! And not just pencils! Thirty bags in pretty much sequential order!! Well, it was obvious. SOME teacher had simply not returned the materials from last year.

I sent out a polite but desperate email. Please check your cupboards, drawers, wherever! I know this was not intentional but I really need those missing pencils!!

Nothing.
Muttering grimly about lackadaisical teachers and gritting my teeth I bought new bags, pencils and rubbers and stayed back until 7pm that night ensuring they were ready to go for the big tests the next day. I spent an hour the next night going through the bags, counting every pencil and rubber and sharpening where needed (btw: thanks to those two willing Year 12s who helped me out because of course they had no study to do, did they? Right.).

All was well.

The next day however, was a different story. Firstly someone suggested that the year 7s had sharpened their pencils away to such an extent that they needed replacing!!!!!!!!! What the heck was that about? they were meant to be doing a test not beating a path to the rubbish bin for pencil sharpening purposes. (Later, when I checked their classroom for something I happily realised they had not been beating a path. The shavings were all over the floor.) Well anyway, pencil replacement was not going to happen!!!! They could learn the hard way about the hard heart of the Pencil Nazi.

Secondly, when I checked the year 9 boxes, I discovered that not one but two bags and a pencil sharpener were missing!
(cue dramatic music: duh duh daaaaaaaaaaah!)

(I ask you...does this look like an organised box to you?)

I immediately set about on a campaign to name and shame the irresponsible test supervisors who had LOST MY PENCILS!!!!!!!!

Email announcements went out, congratulating the one supervisor who had managed to return everything correctly. Lists of missing items were posted, although in my mercy I did not at this point reveal the names of the sloppy teachers who had allowed my stationery to be snaffled!

The following morning I found an apologetic note and two replacement pencil sharpeners in my pigeon hole. At least someone was feeling guilty. As it transpired, more than one person must have been feeling guilty because when that box came back at the end of the third day it contained, not one, but three pencil sharpeners! Not quite sure how that happened.

I supervised a test myself on the final day and pupils cowered in fear as I ruled the exam room with a fist of steel and the temper of a recently woken dragon:

GET THAT PENCIL SHARPENER OFF YOUR DESK..........NOTHING IS ALLOWED OIN YOUR DESKS EXCEPT THE PENCIL BAGS AND YOUR TEST PAPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DON"T CARE THAT IT IS ONLY A PENCIL SHARPENER! AND WHY IS THAT PENCIL BAG ON THE FLOOR??????????

All my items were returned correctly.

Later the next day, as I headed to the supermarket and bottlo for my Friday night essential supplies, I rummaged about in the boot of my car looking for a recycled shopping bag. There's still a bit of junk from mum and dad's move lurking in my car and it was hard to find a decent bag in the dark and, hello, what's this? This bag feels heavier than the others........

I found the missing thirty pencils. But noone needs to know that right? Just between you, me and the internet.....