Each box that you mark on each test that you take,
Remember your teachers, their jobs are at stake.
Your score is their score, but don’t get all stressed.
They’d never teach anything not on the test.

From the lyrics to Not On The Test by Tom Chapin and John Forster

It’s a gentle song with a powerful punch.  And, despite the song’s digs at teachers, it’s intended in support of programs that help them reach their students.

Even as Secretary of Education Spellings is strengthening No Child Left Behind, Tom Chapin is gathering a groundswell of support  on notonthetest.com to speak up for keeping music, art, drama, and sports in education because:

It’s no secret that American industry has outsourced most factory jobs to other countries to take advantage of cheaper labor costs. So why are we putting so much effort into a form of education in which there is no creativity? This is the time that our youth should be taught to think ”out of the box,” not be put into a tighter one!

As some of my favorite public school teachers have described, NCLB is sucking the joy out of teaching (and learning.)

I’m signing up to act now for Not On The Test, but I’d love to hear a follow-up to this song that highlights how our nation’s brightest are being left behind.

The Fordham Institute’s latest report confirms that:

1. The nation’s top pupils have “languished” academically while the lowest-performing youngsters have gained dramatically.

2. Most teachers feel pressure to focus primarily on their lowest achieving students, and neglect the high achievers.

Any suggestions for a song title?  Here’s my lame song title attempt - Shut Up, Turn Off Your Mind!  Come on, I know you’ve got some good ones.  Share them in a comment.

More On Living By Learning articles on creativity and school:

In this TED Talks video, Sir Ken Robinson questions: Do schools kill creativity?

Advocating for change in education is a slow process.  In the meantime, creativity is one reason to homeschool.

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My son took his first standardized test today. 

In less than one hour, he took the SCAT test on a computer where he quickly clicked on the multiple choice questions.  Perhaps too quickly.  The test administrator mentioned that he didn’t seem to be reading all the possible answers, and he seemed to choose “A” way too many times.  We’ll find out in three weeks whether he chose well, or not. 

Afterwards, he told me that he didn’t understand some of the questions.  It took some digging but I finally figured out that he was introduced to analogy questions, the bane of college entrance exams.

I suppose that in our society this could be considered a rite of passage.  Today, he discovered the intricacies of  an analogy question.   Why, you ask?  Will he ever need to understand analogies in the real world?  Is this just a bizarre verbal question only found on college admissions tests?  What is the point of subjecting an 8-year-old to a standardized test?

I can’t say that I have a good answer.  The Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth offers a list of testing benefits, and I have a few of my own.   Mostly, I’m still figuring our what I’m doing homeschooling a child who may or may not be intellectually gifted.  I guess I’m hoping that this test will give me some indication of whether or not he excels in verbal or mathematical reasoning. 

If he does excel in either area, I may need to reconsider whether I’m offering enough challenging instruction.  If he does poorly, I may want to review whether I’m giving him enough exposure to age-appropriate material. 

Still, it’s just one assessment tool, and perhaps not the best one.  I’m still debating meeting with a Gifted & Talented Counselor who can administer a barrage of tests and give me specific advice for my son, especially about some of the social and emotional challenges that we face.  We’ll see.  I have to ponder that for a bit.

In the meantime, I asked my son how he felt about the SCAT test.  He said it was mostly OK, except for the math material that he had never seen before.  And he really didn’t like the self-assessment at the end where he was asked to rate his performance.  When asked why, he responded, “Well, I really don’t like to face the truth.”

More articles on Gifted Education:

 Gifted? 

Testing For Talent

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One of the joys of homeschooling is the absence of tests. Yet, today I registered both of my kids in Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth (CTY) Talent Search. As part of this program, they can both look forward to taking the SCAT test which compares their verbal and math reasoning skills to that of students two grades above.

Why did I sign them up for the Talent Search? CTY provides an excellent list of benefits:

1. Reveal or reaffirm academic abilities
2. Provide statistical data about Talent Search participants’ test scores by grade
3. Recognize your child for academic talent
4. Provide access to CTY’s rewarding Family Academic Programs
5. Give your child a chance to qualify for CTY’s Summer and Distance Education Programs

These are all good reasons to have your child participate in the Talent Search; but I would add two more: academic check up and ammunition.

First, the Talent Search test is a kind of academic check up. I already know or suspect that both of my kids are gifted learners. This has been confirmed through tests and experience with my older child, while my younger child appears to have similar abilities. What I don’t know is what impact our school choices (project based private school for one, homeschool for the other) will have on their ability to perform well on the standardized tests that determine academic opportunities. Testing this year, and in future years when required for the homeschooled child, will give us some insight about the efficacy of our schooling while giving them a chance to practice their test-taking skills.

Second, the Talent Search results provide a kind of ammunition when advocating for your child. School administrators and teachers are more likely to believe that a student is a gifted learner when there are test results backing up that assertion. Even with this kind of empirical evidence, there may be very little that a school district can do for your child. For now, we chose to remove our children from the public school because there wasn’t adequate programming for them at their grade levels. In the future, if things change, we may want to let them return to public school, and then these test results may help them get into desired programs.

If I thought that these tests would be stressful to these kids, none of these reasons would be worth any amount of emotional hardship. So far, neither kid has ever worried about a test. So, why not test for talent?

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