By Michael Evans, Assistant Director of ACSI Urban School Services
Visualize with me the opening scene of The Ron Clark Story (Enscoe and DeYoung 2006), a movie depicting a pioneering educator who advocates for urban children. Ron Clark is waiting outside the principal’s office where he is soon to be interviewed for a job. While waiting, he sees a student standing in a trash can in the hall outside a classroom. Intrigued and full of questions, he goes over to the boy and begins a conversation:
“Why are you standing in the trash can?”
“My teacher said I can’t do any work and I belong out with the trash.”
The teacher-to-be exchanges a series of questions with the student-who-isn’t. In the course of the conversation, Mr. Clark finally convinces the child of his worth and says, “You are not trash.” Mr. Clark assists the student in coming out of the trash can while simultaneously giving the student hope about his academic future. Mr. Clark literally had to reprogram the child—overwrite his hard drive—to enable the child’s belief in his own capacity to learn (Enscoe and DeYoung 2006).
Often the question is not what the child knows or does not know, but the measures by which we ascertain our conclusion. For the trash-can student, one teacher may deem that he cannot learn, that he is unable to process the information to function successfully in class. Yet another teacher (Clark), through personal interaction and respect, may draw a completely different conclusion. Why the difference? There’s a different interpretation of the assessments.
When children come to a Christian school, they are often required to take a battery of tests to determine their ability level and the school’s capability of serving or not serving them. Admission standards and testing are usually developed with the school in mind, fashioned around such questions as, What can we handle as a school? Can our teachers meet the needs of the student without disrupting the learning process for others? Can our teachers engage trash-can students?Our focus regarding the initial evaluation of incoming students should determine how we should serve the enrolling child, not if we should serve that child.
I am suggesting that our focus regarding the initial evaluation of incoming students should determine how we should serve the enrolling child, not if we should serve that child. I understand that there are some situations that would preclude a student from getting his needs met. However, I contend that schools—with greater intentionality, targeted ongoing professional development to adequately prepare teachers, and a schoolwide commitment to academic excellence and educational effectiveness— can educate children of various backgrounds, abilities, and experiences.
A low reading score should not deter admissions; it should create a generative educational plan of attack to address the situation.
A fourth grader reading at a second-grade reading level ought to encounter a teacher who is supported by a school community that believes in the child’s ability to succeed and who will work with the school community to creatively, graciously, and strategically work on that child’s behalf to catapult the child to success. A low reading score should not deter admissions; it should create a generative educational plan of attack to address the situation. Even though every situation won’t turn out like a fairy tale (happily ever after), we must push ourselves so that each child has the opportunity to embrace success.
I believe that Wal-Mart does a better job at times serving its customers than we do serving our students. While Wal-Mart stores are incredibly similar, they each have unique characteristics based on the clientele they serve. For instance, a store in El Paso, Texas, will have different items than a store in St. Paul, Minnesota, or one outside New York City. While all the stores have a standard set of items, each store allows the needs of its customers to shape the culture of the store. The need for shovels in one store is replaced by the need for beach accessories in another location. Many schools and educators could learn much from Wal-Mart. Are we designing schools with the students in mind or with a standard set of items in place?
If we are going to be successful, testing with one-dimensional evaluations is too limiting. Traditional testing must yield to authentic, in-depth assessments.
In the traditional model, we ask where the child went to school and what academic grades the child received. But an authentic, in-depth assessment takes into account a child’s background information. Not only do we ask about the name of the school and grades received, but we go a step further to investigate the quality of the school, the integrity of the grades, the involvement of the parents and other support systems, the expectations of the teachers, any learning challenges, life situations surrounding the student, and in general the learning environment of the school.
The authentic assessment asks the questions behind the questions, looks for the details beyond the facts, and suspends judgment until a bigger picture of the student is visualized. The information compiled during the investigation serves as the administrator’s prior knowledge to explain the student’s current academic status. Testing reveals the student’s strengths and weaknesses, laying out an instructional road map, which becomes the prescription for academic success. The additional steps included in the in-depth assessment are required to develop an effective, personalized educational plan to ensure academic success for each student within our schools.
Students are not numbers and grades, scores and stanines. They are individuals, fearfully and wonderfully made, complicated and complex at times, and shaped by life’s experiences, their environment, and others’ expectations. We must take the time to understand each student if we are to assess and serve each of them well.
When making assessments, educators will have a more accurate picture of a student’s life by understanding the context in which the child lives, observing the child in her natural environment, engaging in the normal affairs of her life (at home, at church, in the neighborhood), and receiving input from adults in the child’s life who know her best.
Unfortunately, the one-dimensional evaluation method used in traditional testing is the method of choice when admitting students. We take the child and bring her into a completely new environment with nothing familiar. We ask her to engage in very specific activities that may or may not be foreign to her, and then we have people who are unfamiliar with the child’s academic history decide her ability to learn and do well in school.
I have a three-year-old who knows how to rattle off facts she picks up from siblings and others. It is ever so amazing, however, that our precocious three year- old transforms into a shy, quiet child when we try to put her in the spotlight. The scene is easy to imagine: The grandparents come to visit, everyone is quiet, and the child is asked to share some piece of knowledge...and..silence. Doubt begins to fill the room. Some begin to think, “Oh, those overanxious parents, trying to push their children or imagining things.” Immediately after the last goodbye to the company, the child starts rattling off everything she knows nonstop for hours.
Why? Reciting on demand to visiting grandparents is an unnerving, unnatural situation. It is not the best time to assess what the child can do. It is much better to “catch” the child in a natural environment as she demonstrates what she is capable of doing.
With our current entrance testing model for students, are we catching students as they do their best naturally or are we demanding unnatural results like parents who put their children to the test in front of anxiously awaiting family members?
Let’s take the time to be more effective in our evaluations and more accurate in our assessments. In the rush of admitting students, it is easier to offer a simple test. However, acceptance of the limited information provided by testing without analysis will not prove to be extremely helpful in serving the child, that is, if we decide to serve the child at all. By thinking more holistically as we assess students, we are able to address their needs and provide an exceptional education for all students.
References/Resources
Enscoe, Max, and Annie DeYoung. 2006. The Ron Clark story. Johnson & Johnson Spotlight Presentation series. Produced by Granada America and MAGNA Global Entertainment. Atlanta, GA: Turner Network Television.
Neisworth, John T., and Stephen J. Bagnato. 2004. The mismeasure of young children: The authentic assessment alternative. Infants and Young Children 17, no. 3:198–212.
The Meantime Volume 6 Number1