You are more than your score

A letter to students from an unidentified elementary principal that went home with student state test scores:

We are concerned that these tests do not always assess all of what it is that make each of you special and unique. The people who create these tests and score them do not know each of you-- the way your teachers do, the way I hope to, and certainly not the way your families do. They do not know that many of you speak two languages. They do not know that you can play a musical instrument or that you can dance or paint a picture. They do not know that your friends count on you to be there for them or that your laughter can brighten the dreariest day. They do not know that you write poetry or songs, play or participate in sports, wonder about the future, or that sometimes you take care of your little brother or sister after school. They do not know that you have traveled to a really neat place or that you know how to tell a great story or that you really love spending time with special family members and friends. They do not know that you can be trustworthy, kind or thoughtful, and that you try, every day, to be your very best... the scores you get will tell you something, but they will not tell you everything. There are many ways of being smart.  http://mrsrycus.weebly.com/3/post/2013/10/on-meaping.html

As I visited schools this week, I saw a number of elementary secretaries putting mailing labels on enevelopes for sending home state test scores. So Scott McLeod's Tweet pointing me to the letter above resonated. Test scores tell us such small amount about a person.

 

From personal experience, I know test scores can work against good test takers as well. When I was a little student growing up on the prairie, we took the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. I always scored in the 90+ percentile. I was really good at psyching out the test makers and filling in little bubbles. My class performance was, ahem, somewhat lower. Which led to the comment "Does not work to potential" on every report card I can remember receiving. 

 

We are none of us our test scores - good or bad.

See also "Schools are more than the sum of their scores" 

Images from Miriam Cohen's First Grade Takes a Test (the latest edition has a different illustrator)

Comments

[Bill Storm]

I've had a visceral abhorrence of standardized testing for a very long time, ever since my high school vice principal, holding a magical piece of paper with bar graphs displaying my "future potential and aptitude," informed me I would likely be a C student in college (informing me I was to consider myself "average") and that a career requiring grad school was out of the question. I was half way through college before I realized that I'd been completely snookered, and three masters degrees later I strongly counsel every kid who will listen to ignore what those tests are supposed to reveal.

Bottom line, for individual students K-12, standardized summative testing can be very damaging if used improperly, and most of it is.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Bill,

My sense is that your story is far too common and too few people get past the label. What wasted human potential because of political craziness!

Thanks for writing,

Doug

[Donna Gehring]

The past few years I've started a new tradition reading Dr. Seuss' Hooray for Diffendoofer Day! (with a litte help from Jack Prelutsky & Lane Smith) to third grade classes before their 1st official state standardized test.. Hopefully, best of all, we are teaching our students to think.

[Sandy Penvose]

With so much emphasis on teacher evaluations, tying raises,etc to student performance ("oh, it will never come to that"), I shared this post with our teachers and media specialists. They share the same demoralizing feeling with their students after an observation on one day that doesn't really measure their worth or value as a teacher or person.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi Donna,

My motto has always been that schools should be about teaching people to think, not to believe! Thanks for sharing your suggestion. It's a good one.

Doug

Hi Sandy,

I've never put it in those words, but absolutely TEACHERS are more than their (students) scores as well. Do you think there is a rising backlash against teacher evals based on test scores? I sure hope so.

Thanks for the comment!

Doug