Ryan Fries’ Response to “Fighting Back: Assessing the Assessments

In his article, Hillocks focuses on the problems related to student assessment, specifically in writing. Is too much time being focused on testing and do we start testing at too early of an age? As a teacher, I have heard this issue brought up on multiple occasions. Are we teaching to the test or teaching critical skills that will give students mastery in key areas of literacy? I have never taught specifically for a test that I plan to give. My experience may be different than most teachers as I’ve usually developed my own tests after the unit or semester materials have been covered.

But Hillocks appears to be bringing up the issue because of its relationship to government funding when he says, “States that do not comply with the demand for testing will fail to receive federal money”, meaning that if states fail to raise their current standards of education, monitor progress, determine results, and dismiss teachers that are ineffective they would be unable to function under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) guidelines.

In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with aiming for the ideals that are pointed out in NCLB, certainly not given that we lag behind many other countries in the areas of science and math education.  Whether or not the assessments are effective or accurate enough is the issue Hillocks is focused on.  However, in his critique he aims to either improve or, which I found strange, eliminate some testing practices altogether.  Eliminating the testing shouldn’t be the goal but improvement should.

Hillocks cites an essay given the highest score on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test and discredits the merits of its assessment.  He claims that in the exemplary sample essay on the subject of taking an exam to pass high school fails to support the student fails to provide accurate support of the claim that such a test shouldn’t exist.  I think Hillocks’ expectations regarding  a high school student’s ability to qualify his/her claims is slightly grandiose. The aim of the test and writing testing in general according to NCLB is primarily to satisfy grammar and organization/structure requirement. Perhaps in focusing his attention on criticizing the Illinois assessment he negates the general goals that assessment achieves in relation to NCLB.

I’m also skeptical of Hillock’s claim that standard writing assessments may not be comprehensive because they exclude ‘advertising, poetry, drama,’ and of course ‘jokes’. Hillock’s stresses the teaching of critical thinking skills because it is such a ‘crucial time in American democracy’ but I would be interested to see the data regarding how many high school students share the same concerns. Basically, many educators complain that students aren’t able to produce grammatically correct essays. So to focus on the critical skills of explanation, evidence and example to support a persuasive essay is rather ambitious. More often, those skills are developed and fine-tuned at the post-secondary/university level.