Common Core tests were supposed to be immune to test prep. So why are kids spending weeks prepping anyway?
Third-graders’ reaction to timed tests: “Oh, I can’t do this. There’s no way I can do it.”
NEW ORLEANS — Five weeks before the start of March testing, with excitement bubbling over for Mardi Gras, it was practice-test week at New Orleans’ John Dibert Community School at Phillis Wheatley.
Instead of thinking about parades, beads and king cakes, fourth-graders were intent on the test papers before them and a large digital clock counting down on the whiteboard. Signs posted outside the classroom door cautioned “quiet, testing in progress.”
In Bodie Manly’s fifth-grade math class, students were reviewing material they’d likely see on the test. Some worked independently on laptops at their desks with headphones on while others gathered in a small group on the floor, manipulating colored foam shapes and puzzling over the fractional parts of a hexagon. The three-dimensional pieces enabled them to physically separate the hexagon into its many parts in order to visualize solutions. They were scheduled for the math practice test later that week.
All the preparation may not do much good. This year, Louisiana students are taking new math and English standardized tests linked to the Common Core, the five-year-old national learning standards adopted by more than 40 states — which test-makers and many education experts say will be less susceptible to the intensive test-prep techniques of the past.
Laura Slover, CEO of Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), whose exam is the model for Louisiana’s new test, has written that “there is no ‘test prep’ for these tests; these are the kinds of test items that require understanding of concepts and application that only come through a year of effective teaching, not through ‘drill and kill.’”
Nonetheless, it’s not stopping many Louisiana schools from trying — not so much to improve student performance, but to boost student confidence as children are tested for the first time on the Common Core.
Fifth-graders Kayla Venson, 11, and Amir Hansell, 10, review math Common Core tests were supposed to be immune to test prep. So why are kids spending weeks prepping anyway? - The Hechinger Report: