Advertisement

Column: My third-grader thought she had failed Florida's standardized reading test

 
The Florida State Assessment test determines whether a child can go to the fourth grade. A poorly worded instruction caused tears and anxiety.
The Florida State Assessment test determines whether a child can go to the fourth grade. A poorly worded instruction caused tears and anxiety.
Published June 21, 2017

On a bright spring afternoon, one of my 8-year-old twins dragged her feet over the school's sidewalk toward my car. She caught my eye and began to wail before even making it to the vehicle.

"I failed my FSA, Mom," she cried. "My teacher thinks I failed it."

The Florida Standards Assessments test is our version of the nationally required standardized testing in reading and math. Students take the tests every year starting in the third grade.

This test is the sole factor that determines whether a child can move on to the fourth grade. It's the only thing that matters in determining a fourth-grader from a third-grader. My girls are straight-A students.

So what had my one girl done so horribly? She misread an unclear directive and was too scared to raise her hand for clarification, because the test instructed students not to raise their hands for any reason. In all capital letters. She was terrified of having her test invalidated.

She came across questions that said:

"Write the correct answer on the line, then fill in the bubble before the correct word or phrase."

So she wrote the correct answer on the line, and filled in the bubble above that answer on the sheet. If the correct answer was B, she wrote down B on the line and bubbled in A because A comes before B.

"It didn't seem right to me, mama, but it said in all capital letters 'DON'T RAISE YOUR HAND FOR ANY REASON' so I didn't."

As it turned out, her twin sister had the same problem — the difference being that she had ignored the instructions and raised her hand for clarification. Then she went back, erased all her bubbles and filled the right ones in.

The kids had been practicing FSA problems for months. Hours of their school days had been devoted to the task. The homework assignments piled up: Scan-Tron question, after Scan-Tron question, after Scan-Tron question. Suffice to say, the girls were prepared for this test, if nothing else. This was all just a terrible misunderstanding.

Of course, there was no way to tell if my child actually had failed the FSA. Those tests are sealed and sent as soon as they leave the child's hand. The only reason we even had a clue was because my daughter's teacher happened to notice her answers didn't match her bubbles as she skimmed over the completed sheets.

So, I was stuck with an A student who was sure she would fail the third grade, a principal who was very sorry about the mix-up but insisted his hands were tied and a state-level test maker (AIR) that ignored my calls. I wanted the wording changed on future iterations of this test. I don't think using the terms "next to" or "in front of" is too much to ask.

Spend your days with Hayes

Spend your days with Hayes

Subscribe to our free Stephinitely newsletter

Columnist Stephanie Hayes will share thoughts, feelings and funny business with you every Monday.

You’re all signed up!

Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started.

Explore all your options

What I also wanted, of course, was a real live person to look over my kid's test to see if her comprehension score was impacted by her literal understanding of a pretty poorly phrased instruction. But I couldn't disrupt the standardized machine once it was in assembly-line motion. If one kid got treated differently, it would invalidate the entire school's exams.

These tests don't enhance learning, or provide context and well-rounded nuanced thought processes. Instead, they create an environment of surface learning: understanding phrasing, looking for a few key words, bubbling quickly, taking in the patterning of the test itself. That's what my kids practiced all year.

Since no one knew when we'd get the results back, my child had to start an intensive English Language Arts Standards (ELA) reading regimen. Each day she would arrive at school and tackle several reading packets while her classmates worked on other assignments.

A week or so before school let out for the summer those FSA scores came back. My daughter got a 3. Misreading the instructions cost her just one point out of the five, and she passed.

My little third-grader had spent days crying over this. And for what? Why are we forcing our students to learn how to test? Why are our teachers forced to take hours every school day to teach kids how to properly answer standardized questions, in place of actually guiding them through understanding the objectives in a real-world context? What are we proving?

This year, Florida ranked 11th nationally for K-12 achievement. In terms of financing, it ranked 45th out of 50. So we've done it. We've proved our kids can spit out the rote answers and ace our arbitrary markers of achievement. And yet we still aren't funding their education. Maybe it's time we give our future our money instead of our assessments. Maybe it's time we invest in our public schools, rather than in automated tests.

Darlena Cunha is a freelance writer and frequent contributor to the Washington Post's On Parenting blog. She blogs at Parentwin and can be reached on Twitter at @parentwin. © 2017 Washington Post