Re-thinking Testing

From the desk of Hope…

The EOG’s are over, well almost over. For the students who did not pass the test, they have to do a week of remediation and then they have to re-test. Test, Test, Test, Bubble, Bubble, Bubble. Ugh!

The students who pass the test with the first administration have three weeks left of school. What do they do these last three weeks of school? At my son’s school, they do “red zone and green zone”. A recent school newsletter indicated “green zone” is the reward for passing the EOG.

I have so many concerns and questions about this set up for testing. The state of NC is asking to add more school days to the calendar year yet there are clearly wasted days for many students. Something about this doesn’t make sense to me.

I have been in so many conversations about testing recently. From what I can tell it is a frustrating time of year for everyone – teachers, students and parents. I went to a dinner party recently and lots of time was spent talking about frustrations with “the testing season.”

One particular testing conversation keeps resonating with me.

I met a friend who works at Wake Forest University for coffee last week and we started talking about…testing. In this conversation she reminded me that WFU is looking at the “whole student” in lieu of SAT scores. Alternatively, in the admission process, they are looking at the following:

• face to face communication skills
• writing proficiency
• extra curricular activities
• work ethic and motivation
• character
• exemplary high school grades
• creative talents

I personally love this idea and started doing some research on how WFU came to this progressive decision. Here is a quote from the director of admissions that sums up their reason for the choice.

Director of Admissions Martha B. Allman (’82, MBA ’92) assures that quality won’t be sacrificed. “We’ll still be looking for the very best students,” she says. “Eliminating the test requirement will demonstrate that we value individual academic achievement and initiative, as well as creative talent and character, above standardized testing.”

The Wake Forest faculty features one of America’s leading authorities on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and its place in the admissions practices of the country’s elite universities — Associate Professor of Sociology Joseph A. Soares. He came to Wake Forest as a senior appointment five years ago from Yale University,

Soares is quoted saying, “The world thinks of the SAT as an intelligence test that accurately predicts college performance,” he adds. “It’s not, and it doesn’t.”

So in all of the conversations I have recently had about testing the latter story is the most inspirational to me. I love thinking about the “whole student” and considering all of the pieces that comprise a student’s profile. I personally believe that triangulating data both quantitative and qualitative (like WFU has chosen to do), is imperative as we re-think how to predict student success as it relates to the real world.