NEWSWEEK:Are test scores a good way for parents to pick a school for their child?
THEODORE SIZER: A lot of those scores rest on very sandy soil. It’s limited and often very skewed information. We all know that some kids blossom with tests and some kids don’t. And we also know that there are very few correlations between sophisticated standardized testing and long-term intellectual performance and character habits.
What’s a better way to judge a school?
NANCY SIZER: If I were a parent, I would ask to follow a kid through the school for a day. Ask to see the child’s work and have him or her explain it to you.
T.S.: At the Parker Charter School, we have just gone through a formal state inspection, a highly orchestrated visit arising from a very carefully prepared document set by the state authorities. We were highly accountable. A group of veteran teachers spent three-and-a-half days with us. The inspectors also talked with the parents in a way that went far beyond any test. You can hide in a test. You can’t hide in an inspection.
Still, most people use scores to judge a school’s effectiveness.
T.S.: That’s because people are lazy. They’re not asking questions. Tests are an easy out. They have this facade of toughness and objectivity. Tests put no burden on the people who most often demand them–the politicians.
Do you think teachers should be tested?
T.S.: This is another example of harmful laziness. It’s easy to give a test but it only tells you something at the extremes. The totally incompetent teacher and the totally incompetent arithmetic student–they’ll pop out in a test. In a good school, you wouldn’t have to give a test. You’d know who’s having a problem. Testing reduces teaching to mechanics, and as a principal, I don’t want mechanical teachers.
N.S.: But you’re asking an awful lot of the human beings inside schools if you don’t have tests. You’re asking for principals to be willing to sit down with a teacher and talk to him about things that have gotten out of hand. And you have to reduce the teacher’s load so that they can get to know their students better and find out what will really make each student sing as a scholar.
