Teachers refuse to give standardized tests at Seattle high schools

In class, on Friday, we read and discussed a Washington Post article in which Seattle area teachers boycotted giving the state required MAP test to their students. In this article the teachers listed multiple  reasons to not give the test including, questioning the validity of the assessment, claiming no benefit to ESL and Special Needs students and loss of valuable class time.

Of these listed the point that interested me the most was the validity of the test. How is it not valid? What is the margin of error at the high school level? It would be interesting to see the data that backs this. If it is true, that the test is not valid, then the teachers are completely within their right to boycott this assessment. Unless an assessment is valid, meaning it measures what it claims to measure, and reliable there is no purpose to it; the assessment is void.

Aside from reading the article, I enjoyed listening to every one's perspective in class. I liked how the adolescent group referred to standardized assessment as a "necessary evil" because, that's exactly what it is. Assessment is necessary to evaluate instruction, without it how would we as teachers know if our methods are effective? The issue that comes into play is, however, as of now our method of assessment is one high stakes test to evaluate the performance of entire school buildings and districts.

The question arises, are there other options? How do we prove effectiveness of instruction and standardization of curriculum without high stakes testing? Two options my group discussed were:

1. Finals given in each course subject are the same across the state, meaning everyone who took chemistry would take the same chemistry exam. Pros to this are, it would still serve to standardize the curriculum, even if teachers were teaching to the test they would be hitting all the standards in the Common Core and students wouldn't be tested on things they learned five years ago or have not yet learned. A con to this is something would still need to be done at the elementary grade level.

2. Teachers are expected to collect data on their students' learning progress through out the year and submit it to their superiors. I would like to note another classmate stated that if this would be implemented it would not be standardize because teachers would all use different measurements. I did not explain this example thoroughly in class. In this system teachers would all use the same data collection system, as they are doing now in elementary schools with the TRC data. Pros to this include teachers getting immediate feedback on their instruction early in the year so they can make changes if needed, puts less pressure on students because they are doing much smaller assessments and it shows student growth through out the year. The downside to this however, is it will take a lot more time and work on the teachers' part, teachers would have to learn how to accurately assess and track students' progress and this would end up being on somewhat of an honor system where we trust schools to not skew data and as we have learned from the Columbus City Schools attendance scandal, districts are not always honest, especially when there is funding on the line.

As seen there are draw backs to any system put in place. Does anyone have any other ideas on effective measures to replace high stakes testing?

Side Note: Many of us mentioned in class how pointless it was to take the OGT our sophomore year, because we still had two more years left of high school. This measure seems pointless to us because we all passed it without issue, however there are many students that do not, which is why it is given our sophomore year so these students get as many opportunities to pass it as possible.