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Stacey Lynch

© 2018

1st Grade Testing Report

for the

Board of Education

By,

Stacey Lynch

First Grade Teacher

Stedwick Elementary School

2018-2019 School Year

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Stacey Lynch

© 2018

Good evening,

My name is Stacey Lynch. I am a first grade teacher at Stedwick Elementary School where I have been teaching since 2005. I am a first grade CTL rep and MCEA building rep.

If my name sounds familiar to some of you, it is because I am the one who logged all of the testing hours during the 2017-2018 school year. Although I met with Dr. Janet Wilson and Ms. Niki Hazel last summer to discuss my testing concerns and go over my data, it seems things have not gotten any better. In fact, they have gotten worse.

Last year, my students spent 65 hours and 16 minutes testing. This year, they spent 69 hours and 2 minutes testing.

According to Maryland House Bill 461, the More Learning Less Testing Act of 2017, there is a testing limit of 2.2% of the school year, which equates to 23.8 hours. Clearly, I am approximately three times beyond that mark. Last summer, I was informed that I have interpreted the law incorrectly, that it is actually 9.1 hours of testing per student. I logged the hours both ways this year. You will see the breakdown of my data along with my comments in my written report. Out of 17 students, seven of my students reached the 9.1 hour mark. Five students were within 45 minutes of that mark. The other five students were not with me the whole year.

Let’s look at this data in a different way: A typical elementary school day is six hours and 25 minutes long. If you take away an hour for lunch and recess, and 45 minutes for specials, that leaves roughly four hours and 20 minutes of instructional time, which will be even less due to transition time. With the four plus hours left of instructional time, it will take 16 days to reach the 69 hour mark. That is more than three weeks of instruction lost due to testing. That is time the students are not being taught because so much of the testing has to be done one on one.

In addition to the loss of instructional time, this also takes an emotional toll on our students. I have had students in tears when it comes to taking these assessments. Students are also acting out because they are not

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Stacey Lynch

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getting the help they need in order to succeed. The number of behavior problems increases greatly when teachers are assessing their students and not available.

To me, it does not matter if the number is 23.8 or 9.1, there is still far too much testing going on! It must stop!

I realize that with the new curriculum, the testing will be changing. However, with a complete roll out still several years away, we need to make some immediate changes.

I am asking you to step in and do what is right for our children. Please work together with educators to make the best decisions with regards to assessing our students. I gladly volunteer myself to be a part of that.

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Stacey Lynch

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Testing Report 2018-2019

Assessment changes: This year, the written assessment was eliminated. If the students still had to take this assessment, my total would have been even higher. Last year, the written assessment took up more than eight hours of time.

The math assessments also changed. Instead of having two progress checks and four EMAT tests, we had four quarterly assessments - this seems to be a combination of the progress checks AND EMAT assessments.

For mClass - we had to add the Dibels back in - including DORF. DORF takes approximately six minutes per student.

Map-RF is new this year. We were supposed to take it three times, but the county was not ready for us to take it in the fall. That would have been an extra hour of lost instructional time.

Student changes: I currently have 14 students in my class. I had three students move out of my room. If they had been with me the entire year, my total would have been higher.

I had two students move into my room in May. If they had been with me all year, imagine what my total would be. (One of those students is new to the United States and is exempt from the assessments for now.)

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Stacey Lynch

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Data: Here is the number of hours spent on each assessment this year:

Here is the breakdown by assessment:

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Here are the individual student hours:

In row one, the numbers represent each individual student. The numbers that are highlighted in yellow are students who started the year with me, but then moved. The numbers that are in blue are my new students who started in May.

In row 19, the numbers in green are the students who reached the 9.1 hour mark. The numbers in yellow are the students who were close to that mark. The numbers in red are the students who were not with me the whole year and therefore were further away from the 9.1 hour mark.

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Stacey Lynch

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Here are the times for the first mClass assessment:

Here are the times for the second mClass assessment:

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Here are the times for the third mClass assessment:

Here are the times for the Map-P and Map-RF assessments:

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Here are the times for the Quarter 1 Math District Assessment:

Here are the times for the Quarter 2 Math District Assessment:

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Stacey Lynch

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Here are the times for the Quarter 3 Math District Assessment:

Here are the times for the Quarter 4 Math District Assessment:

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Here are the times for the first MIRL:

Here are the times for the second MIRL:

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Stacey Lynch

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Additional Data: Other teachers around the county logged the number of hours they spent assessing their students. Here is the information I have received so far:

1) This is from a Pre-K teacher:

2) Here is a letter from another educator: “I teach 8 students 3rd-5th grade in a School-Community Based Program. Alt-MISA – 7.5 hours

MSAA – 27.5 hours

I had to test each student individually for these Alternate Assessments. In total, over 35 hours of instruction were lost between March 17 and May 3, 2019. I also had to leave my classroom for these tests or wait for a Promethean board to be accessible elsewhere for testing.”

3) A special educator in Silver Spring informed me that she has spent 40 hours testing 20 students.

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4) The PARCC testing has taken up a lot of time in third, fourth, and fifth grade. Look at how close they are to the 9.1 mark!

Consider this: 1) My school is a project based learning focus school. Focus schools and title one schools have reduced class sizes. Think about non-focus and non-title one schools who have close to 30 kids per class. How much higher are their totals from mine?

2) As I mentioned in my oral speech, the number of behavior issues increases greatly when students are being assessed. Last year, there were many days where every available staff member was occupied trying to solve a behavior problem. Once the testing stopped and we were able to return to our engaging project based learning ways, the behavior problems drastically decreased.

Final Thoughts: In the April 22, 2019 edition of the Marshall Memo, an article was posted titled Robert Slavin on Benchmark Assessment. They were referencing his article Benchmark Assessments: Weighing the Pig More Often? from earlier that month. Here are some important points from the Marshall Memo:

“...benchmark tests take a lot of instructional time and gobble up district funds.”

“Teachers already give a lot of brief, targeted curriculum-linked assessments, and they always have…...so periodic tests aren’t adding value.”

“Benchmark tests are poorly constructed, focusing on test prep and low-value skills.”

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“Tests are given too frequently and over-testing undermines student motivation.”

“There isn’t meaningful follow-up with students after each test.”

All of those points are what MCPS educators are thinking with regards to the assessments we are required to give our students. MCPS needs to seriously consider which assessments have genuine value for both teachers and students. These assessments are damaging to our students and needs to change. I am more than willing to sit down with you to discuss my data and ideas further.