It’s that time of year when students are taking standardized state tests. Some Washington Measurements of Student Progress tests will be replaced next year by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, or SBAC, tests. I am concerned that, for many students, the new tests will do a poor job measuring the targeted skills.
The SBAC test is an online exam. Scores will depend strongly on technology skills students develop at home, if parents have the money. My local elementary school has 30 computers, and students get a half hour of computer time each week. Have you seen fourth-graders try to write a paragraph on a computer? Fortunately, my children learned to keyboard on our home computer. Video games and smartphones don’t teach typing.
I took some SBAC practice tests. Students need to navigate two computer windows simultaneously, and not all the information was visible at one time. Elementary students have to do research on the complex nasa.gov Web domain. That is developmentally inappropriate.
The tests mix subject material. The third-grade language arts test included fourth-grade math concepts. The fourth-grade math test included words that many (legal) immigrant students may not understand.
