Case
Invalid Assessments

Everything that I have read and learned through my assessment courses in the masters program states that in order to fairly assess my students, the assessment questions must be valid. I have noticed that many of the assessment questions assigned on my district assessments do not fit with the standards. I brought this to the attention of my administrators and they said because it is district assessments that I must give it to the students. I just don't agree with this, I even offered to remake the tests and was told no. What could I do when I don't believe in something, but am told another?

Posted on: 03/11/15 | Views: 887
Solution #1
I believe that this may be a dilemma that many teachers face with the ever changing curriculum of education. For this situation, I think there are a few possible solutions. First, when your school is talking about adopting new curriculum you could ask to be included on that committee. If the change is district wide then I would ask my administrators to be included on that committee too. Second, you could ask teachers in different districts about their curriculum and who they use. Then you could bring your findings to your administrators and try to get that curriculum implemented.

Being included on the committee is a great idea. The best way to do something is to be a part of it.

Thanks for the comments.

I really like your solution because it tackles the problem in steps.

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Solution #2
With that situation, you must do what your administration tells you to do. If an assessment is district-wide, there isn't much you can do individually to change it. You may be able to ask and find out when the district will be revising the assessments, and ask to be on the committee that does that. I know in our district, we sent a few teachers from each department to represent our school and assist in creating/revising these types of assessments.

Thanks for the comments.

Thanks for the comments.

This is honestly what I thought of when reading the case. Sometimes it is just best to stick to what is being told until you can fight it properly and justly.

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Solution #3
In our county, teachers are advised to view the assessments prior to giving them. While feedback is not necessarily encouraged, I spoke with our testing coordinator about some discrepancies with alignment to standards on our calendar and he asked me to detail my concerns in an email. While we were still required to give the test, after he forwarded the concerns on to the district assessment office, they decided to throw out some of the questions that were not correctly aligned based on teacher feedback. So even though the test was not able to be changed on such short notice, the grading was modified to only include the appropriate questions.
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Solution #4
A short term fix is to teach how you feel but assess how they feel. Long term fight it against the committee, and just work hard against it legally.
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Solution #5
It is sad that at times teachers do not have a say in the matter. And it is not fair that the students have to take tests that do not align with the standards. If you do feel very strongly about this, you could put in research and set up a meeting with the district to review these tests.
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