Pressures of standardized tests weigh on students
By Treena Shapiro
Advertiser Education Writer
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
One of the things Liahona Maun has been learning in class lately is how to carefully fill in "bubbles" with a No. 2 pencil.
Samantha Manipon, a second-grader at St. Joseph's, gets practice taking timed exams, a technique used to ready students for standardized tests.
To the Waipahu Elementary School third-grader, taking practice standardized tests helps eliminate fear of the real ones she will face in a few weeks. "It's fun because my teacher told me how to do it and I know," she said.
Liahona's class has been preparing for what her teacher calls the "hiccup" test — the Hawai'i Content and Performance Standards II Statewide Assessment.
The test will help determine progress schools make toward meeting federal standards. Schools that lag face sanctions.
Besides learning how to follow the directions and answer sample questions, Liahona, 8, said she has been told how to prepare at home the night before the test.
"We're going to go (to bed) early, and we're going to eat breakfast before we go to school so we don't have to be sleepy in class," Liahona said.
Liahona is one of the 55,000 Hawai'i public-school students in grades 3, 5, 8 and 10 who must take the eight- to 10-hour battery of reading, writing and mathematics tests this spring.
The pressure to improve test scores is particularly acute in Hawai'i, where years of disappointing results, including those on the 3-year-old assessment battery, have intensified a call for education reform.
"I think there's pressure on the whole system," said Randy Hitz, dean of the College of Education at the University of Hawai'i. "Teachers are certainly feeling that pressure, superintendents are feeling the pressure and that certainly gets down to the students and the parents."
Experts caution that the scores alone are not critical for individual students and a better indicator is the child's performance during the entire school year.
The pressure on schools comes from the high stakes attached to the statewide assessment. The federal No Child Left Behind Act requires that public schools make annual progress toward having all students proficient in reading and math by 2014. Schools that fail to make progress must offer parents the option of transferring children to another school or free tutoring. Schools that receive federal Title I money to help with low-income students and lag designated benchmarks are under even more stress to improve, as low scores could result in further sanctions, while higher scores could lift them out of "failing" status.
Some schools will schedule a two-week test period in March, while others will wait until April. Testing will take up to an hour and a half each day. Two of the sections will be multiple-choice from the national Stanford Achievement Test, while the other seven to eight sections will include open-ended or essay questions.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
Eight-year-old Jessica Nguyen, a third-grader at Waikele Elementary School, worries about the tests. Her class practices for them by reading articles and answering questions about them.
Marsha Nakasone of Kumon Math and Reading Centers works with third-grader Teresa Zhou from St. Joseph's school. Kumon students attend sessions twice a week and have 20 minutes of homework a day.
"I'm nervous because sometimes I don't know how to spell the word or how to read it," Jessica said.
Jessica's mother, Lisa Nguyen, who is from Vietnam, fears that her English is not good enough to help Jessica and her two brothers with their schoolwork, and her busy schedule only exacerbates the problem. "It's hard for me because I don't have enough time to teach them," she said.
So she sends them to the Kumon Math and Reading Centers after school for tutoring. As a result, "They do pretty good on their test scores," she said.
Students from schools designated as "failing" under No Child Left Behind may be eligible for free tutoring from a designated vendor, such as small group sessions through College Connections Hawai'i, a nonprofit group.
Andrew Aoki, co-founder and operations director of College Connections Hawai'i, said tutors do not design their sessions specifically to improve test performance.
The College Connections program instead teaches 100 strategies tied to the standards, such as how to solve a particular kind of math problem. Learning those strategies could give kids more confidence when it comes time to take the test, he said.
The Kumon Math and Reading Centers take a different approach. Students attend classes twice a week and have 20 minutes of homework every day.
"The Kumon program is excellent preparation for standardized tests and the reason is that children enrolled in Kumon essentially take a brief test every day," said Matthew Lupsha, the New Jersey-based vice president for the Kumon centers.
Students are asked to record the time it takes them to complete each assignment, so they get accustomed to working quickly and accurately, Lupsha said. They are also trained to read and understand the directions on each section of the assignment.
"The kids are timing themselves every day, so it's no big deal when they have to take a standardized test and finish problems in a short amount of time," Lupsha said.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
UH's Hitz warns against placing too much importance on testing, which he said should be used as just one element when evaluating a student, school or system.
Randy Ridela, a fourth-grader at Honowai Elementary School, wears a T-shirt with a slogan attesting to his hard work. Many experts say that placing too much emphasis on testing can take away from overall learning and that test scores should be just one evaluation tool
In addition, placing too much emphasis on testing could lead to a more narrow curriculum and make students less likely to take risks and be creative.
"Learning is lost if all you are focusing on is a test score and a grade," Hitz said. Learning requires wrong answers and trying to figure out why the mistake was made, he said.
At home, Hitz suggests not discussing the tests at all, unless the child brings them up. Instead, parents should help children with their homework and read to them every night. "I would not say that parents need to do anything specific to prepare their children for a test, other than to make sure they're physically ready for it with good nutrition and sleep," he said.
Pahoa mother Susan Sulprizio, who has five kids in public schools — a freshman and junior at Pahoa High and Intermediate; a seventh-grader at Kua O Ka La, a public charter school; and fourth-grade twins at Pahoa Elementary — said her children have done well on standardized tests, although the schools in her district have been underperforming.
As a substitute teacher pursuing a bachelor's degree and a vice president for the Hawai'i State Parent, Teacher, Student Association, Sulprizio suspects she might get more involved in her children's education than other parents do.
She focuses on reading, helping her children understand the main point of what they read. "If they read good, everything else will be affected," she said.
And she provides encouragement, telling her children, "All you can do on those kinds of tests is do your best."
Selvin Chin-Chance, administrator of the test development section for the state Department of Education, said the test will assess how well children have learned a wide range of material over several months, if not years.
"Short-term preparation for this test is only of minimal help," Chin-Chance said.
In addition, he said, the test scores alone will not be used to evaluate a student's overall performance or to place children in appropriate classes. Essentially, the test results are supposed to show how well the school is teaching the standards, he said.
"The onus is on the school, not the students."
Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8014.
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