Teachers prep students for more tests

EAST COUNTY — Parents and students: Prepare for more flashcards and late-night cram sessions this school year. Manatee County students will be tested more than ever before.

The beginning of the school year also meant the beginning of the implementation of state mandates and the Florida Standards, also known as Common Core. With these comes more tests as well as a shift in testing philosophy.

The changes, though, have created concerns with the new testing policies.

For one, some critics worry the secrecy now surrounding tests may limit a teacher’s ability to help students learn.

Students will receive their exam grades, but they won’t have access to which questions they answered incorrectly.

This amounts to a lost learning opportunity, according to Pat Barber, a former teacher and president of the Manatee Education Association, the union that represents teachers in the district.

“Students really lose out on the explanation for why they missed what they missed,” Barber said. “By not knowing what they answered wrong, they aren’t able to not make the same mistake again.”

In addition, teachers also won’t know what’s on the exams — before or after the tests have been administered and graded, which could limit their ability to improve their lessons to help students do better in the future.

Manatee School Board Chairwoman Julie Aranibar said the flip side of the tests’ confidentiality is it prevents teachers from “strictly teaching to the test.”

Instead, the tests are a measure of what students learned.

“If this is really a final exam at the end of a course, then no one should be surprised by what’s on that test,” said Aranibar. “The test shows what you’re expected to learn this year and what you should know.”

Another issue with the new exams, Barber says, is they take students out of the classroom, which interrupts teachers’ ability to prepare their students. This becomes increasingly important as the district ties teachers’ pay with students’ performance on exams.

Too much testing?
The district estimates it will hold tests on 80 days of the 180-day school year.

“Between preparing students to take the tests and actually administering the tests, a huge amount of a teacher’s time to teach students is taken away,” Barber said. “We used to have 180 days to teach with a small amount of time for testing, now we have a huge amount of time for testing with the leftovers for teaching.”

In the past, teachers gave final exams at their discretion based on their lesson plans and the curriculum. But starting this year, the state has shifted the testing focus to End of Course (EOC) exams to judge students’ proficiency in nearly every course they take.

Proponents of the new testing say it will help prepare students for careers and college. Testing starts in voluntary pre-kindergarten, during which students will take three assessments. Those tests increase in both rigor and quantity up to 12th grade.

The district is in the process of creating 900 EOC exams, for music, physical education and other classes. The district is also expanding the English Language Arts writing assessment to four additional grade levels. Students in fourth through 10th grades will now take that assessment.

The tests can make up a significant portion of a students’ final grade, but the only EOC students must pass to graduate is the one for Algebra 1.

BY THE NUMBERS
3 - The number of tests VPK students will take

5 - The average number of tests elementary school students will take

9 - The average number of tests high school students will take

10 - The average number of tests middle school students will take

80 - The estimated number of days on which students will take tests

900 - The number of End of Course exams the school district must create

Are you smarter than a fifth-grader?
The new Florida Standards change the way students are taught and tested.

Below are some sample questions and answers children are required to know.

Kindergarten
What is a gristmill?

First grade

Second grade
Look at the pool below.

a. The average swimming pool is 25 meters long. How many meter sticks would we need to lay end to end to cover the length of the pool? Explain how you know.

b. If you swam two laps in the pool, how many meters did you swim?

Third grade
Shawn told his teacher that both of these shapes represent the fraction 2/3, because there are two pieces shaded in and three pieces total. Do you agree with Shawn? Why or why not?

Fifth Grade
Brock is 124.2 cm tall. His brother Will is 155.6 cm tall. What is the difference in the two boys’ heights? Write an equation to represent the situation.

Eighth grade
Ruth's parents give her d dollars for every test score higher than 90. In October, Ruth got m number of test scores higher than 90. In November, she got t number of test scores higher than 90. Which of the following equations represents the total money she got for October and November?
A. d + m + t
B. d ( m + t )
C. 2d ( m + t )
D. dm + t

Ninth grade
A typical taxi ride will cost you $2.75 plus 25 cents for each 1/10 mile. You are 12 miles from home. How much will the ride cost? Write an equation for the problem.

12th Grade
You have a secret! On day one, you only tell three other people. On day two, each of those three only tell three other people. Suppose this pattern continues indefinitely, can you make a rule to model the relationship between the day and the number of people who know? Use this rule to test your prediction of what day over a million people will be told the secret.

Answers: Kindergarten: A building where grain is turned into flour; First grade: 4 straight sides and angles; 4 straight lines and 4 curved lines; Second grade: a. 25 meter sticks, because each meter stick is 1 meter long; b. 50 meters; Third grade: No. For the shapes to be fractions, the whole piece must be divided into equal parts. The first is a fraction, the second isn’t, because the pieces are unequal; Fifth grade: 32 cm; 124. 2 cm + x = 155.6 cm or 155.6 cm – 124.2 cm = x; Eighth grade: B; Ninth grade: $32.75; equation is C(12) = 32.75; 12th grade: Work organized by day: Day 0: 1; Day 1: 1*3 = 3; Day 2: 1*3*3 = 9; Day 3: 1*3*3*3 = 27; Day 4: 1*3*3*3*3 = 81; the equation is y = 3^x.