What If They Gave a Test and Nobody Came?

The idea hit me a few months ago, and has grown in my mind ever since. As a long-time principal and now assistant professor who teaches teachers becoming principals, and principals preparing for central office positions, I have witnessed the impact of our mad dash to testing that we had with A Nation at Risk,  but really bloomed during the era of No Child Left Behind. Like many of you, I have not only presented hours of professional development on test preparation and “unpacking the standards” but I have also sat through countless hours of similar PD. As each “new” test arrived in response to, or in some cases prior to, “new” standards, I could feel the frustration growing in teachers who really wanted to do a good job, were not afraid of accurate accountability, and were eager to showcase what their students had learned and were able to do. I’ve watched textbook selection committees wander into the wasteland of “how does this line up with ISTEP (and later, iLearn)?” 

Like you, I have watched the test company websites to see if crashes had occurred or were imminent. I have heard the anger and the tears of students who were diligently attempting to answer the questions correctly, only to face a spinning hourglass that would not move on to the next page. Like you, I have talked with countless teachers about how to encourage students to “try really hard on this test because THIS one counts!” (even though all of the other tests that told us how we would do on the real test also really counted.) Side note: should we really have to tell students that “this is the Super Bowl of testing, it really matters!”? Like you, I have attempted to understand how the tests were scored by non-educators, and yet they were supposedly an accurate reflection of what had occurred in the classrooms of the building where I served where teachers were pouring their heart and soul into teaching the ever-changing standards [Indiana Academic Standards, Common Core Standards, and now Common Core Lite – AKA Indiana College and Career Ready Academic Standards] and wondering how this current batch would impact our students, our teachers, our school, and our district. It’s no wonder people are confused when the results come out, the cut scores are established, and NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE RESULTS MEAN! My heart goes out to every Superintendent who has to stand in front of yet another microphone and crowd of reporters and try to explain why THIS set of results are not valid, don’t show our effort or achievement, and should not be used to harm our students, teachers, schools, or districts. 

So, being a child of the 60s and willing to admit it, I go back to a common protest theme that grew up in opposition to the Viet Nam war, which was taken actually from a Carl Sandburg quote, “Sometime they will give a war and nobody will come.” Protesters changed the wording a little to “What if they gave a war, and nobody came?” This brings me to my radical thought of the day, and hence the title for the article, “What if they gave a test, and nobody came?” 

Traditional public school teachers are living through the agony of what An Educator’s GPS (2019) referred to as the age of assessment, the horrific process that has been foisted upon schools for the last twenty years and has created a “pass or perish” (p. 97) culture that has literally changed everything for teachers and schools and students. So, I ask again, “What if they gave a test, and nobody came?” While this question sounds rhetorical, maybe, just maybe, it isn’t. The authors give a few ideas for policymakers which are probably more feasible than outright refusal to take the required tests. Here are a few:

• Stop allowing ONE test, no matter how well made, to determine the success or failure of every student, teacher, school, or district. 
• Stop tying test scores to teacher bonuses or compensation in any form. 
• Properly fund traditional public education so that, rather than giving bonuses for testing success, teachers can be properly remunerated for the priceless service they provide our students.
• Stop the narrowing of the curriculum that has come by eliminating subjects that are not tested. Even Einstein was reported to have said that not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts. 

Maybe the cost is too great, the political implications too grand, the idea just too radical for reasonable people to think. But then again, maybe we should be asking the question, “what if they gave a test and nobody came?”

An Educator’s GPS: Fending Off the Free Market of Schooling for America’s Students.  (2019) Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD.