The Ambiguity of Teaching to the Test Standards

6. THE DISTRICT AND TEST PREPARATION
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lack of focus for district resources and produced mixed messages for teachers
about priorities. Ridley’s focus on literacy was driven by administrators’ beliefs
that improving reading and writing skills was key to helping students
perform better on the state tests, in any subject area.
According to district leaders, teachers’ low motivation to engage in new
learning and their low level of professional skill in math and science was the
most frustrating barrier for reform. One administrator commented: “We’ve
experienced some push-backs, primarily from our primary teachers, because
they’ve never been asked to do anything with kids beyond simple arithmetic.”
The curriculum director explained: “We’re a bit smarter in terms of
what we need to do in order to provide the incentive to pressure, the carrot,
the stick if necessary, in order to increase the percentage of transfer from
training to practice.” Subject supervisors visited classrooms to see if teachers
were using instructional strategies they had learned from outside consultants,
but were quite disappointed that some projects had no discernable influence
on practice.
Overall, Ridley’s curriculum supervisors had a high level of will and capacity
to support curricular and instructional reforms, not only in response
to external pressure from the state test, but more from their individual beliefs
about teaching and learning. They held a strong professional background
in math education, a good understanding of the pedagogical basis for
state and national mathematics standards, and wanted to help teachers
move away from textbooks and procedural skills to active student engagement
in conceptual learning. Yet, because of the district’s larger size, lack of
financial resources, lack of focus on math and science reform, and the constraints
of school reform requirements, the district was not able to organize
in-depth, ongoing training in math for all teachers, to provide sufficient
quantities of new curriculum materials, or to create social networks for
teachers to share knowledge and skills. The poor climate for professional
learning in Ridley’s schools and teachers’ low motivation and skills were serious
challenges to a substantive response to the ESPA, and resulted in more
of an emphasis on decontextualized test preparation for many teachers.
Sunset
Sunset is a small K–8 district with a superintendent and one general-curriculum
supervisor. Despite an increasing rate of suburban development that
doubled school enrollment over a 5-year period, Sunset has retained its
strong rural flavor. The changing demographics presented new challenges to
district administrators and teachers as they made decisions about curriculum,
instruction, and assessment. The predominantly affluent, White community
became more diverse socioeconomically, and administrators blamed a slight
dip in state test scores on the increased number of special-needs students.
Historically, the district has enjoyed strong support and involvement from