Editor’s Note: This story was updated Feb. 5.
Seattle Schools Superintendent José Banda ordered Garfield High School administrators to administer the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test Feb. 5, even though teachers are boycotting the test. All ninth grade students, ELL and Special Education students that did not opt out were pulled from classes to take the MAP test in the computer lab and library.
The January decision by teachers at Garfield High School to boycott the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test has “electrified the country” and is “hitting a nerve with teachers everywhere,” according to Jesse Hagopian, a history teacher at the school and one of the spokespeople for the boycott. His inbox is flooded with e-mails from parents and teachers who appreciate the pushback against standardized testing, he says. The boycott has spread to include many teachers at Orca K-8 School and some teachers at Ballard and Sealth High Schools.
The Seattle chapter of the NAACP announced its support of the Garfield teachers’ boycott on Feb. 4.
The School District uses the test to track student progress and as one piece of its teacher evaluation. The Garfield teachers say it is at best useless and at worst harmful to students and is not designed to evaluate how well teachers teach.
Teachers and principals, along with students, families and community leaders, will be invited to take part in a Joint Task Force on Assessments and Measuring Progress. The task force will explore the strengths and limitations of the MAP test and consider alternatives. It will meet twice a month from February through May and present its recommendations to Banda in May.
Here are answers to some questions about the controversy.
What is MAP?
MAP is produced by the nonprofit Northwest Evaluation Association based in Portland, Ore., and is used by 6,000 school districts across the country including 209 districts with about 300,000 students in Washington. It tests students using an adaptive computer format. This means that if a student answers a question correctly, the test asks a more difficult question; if he answers incorrectly, it goes to an easier question to determine exactly what he knows. There are no essay questions.
It is advertised as “a tool for teachers … created by educators for educators.” It is meant to show teachers exactly where the student is academically and whether she needs more help or accelerated learning. Because it’s given three times a year, in the fall, winter and spring, it can monitor student progress over time and help set academic achievement goals.
In Seattle, the test is given in reading and math in grades K-eight. In high school, it is administered to all ninth graders for reading and to ninth graders enrolled in Algebra 1. Ninth graders enrolled in geometry or other higher-level math classes are no longer required to take the math portion. All MAP testing is optional in the fall, except for students who were not tested the previous spring. On average, students will spend three to four hours a year on MAP.
Why Does Seattle Public Schools Use MAP?
“It’s more reliable as far as consistency of results and charting growth over time” than state-mandated tests taken at the end of the school year, says Eric Anderson, manager of research, evaluation and assessment for Seattle Public Schools. It’s given more frequently than other tests, and teachers get results immediately.
It is most helpful for making “critical instructional changes” for individual students, Anderson explains. It’s used with other data to identify students who may need more help or more acceleration in learning. Along with a cognitive assessment, it screens students for advanced learning and often identifies students whose parents may not have realized they qualified for such advancement. “We can’t abdicate responsibility to provide opportunities for those behind grade level to catch up or those who are above grade level to accelerate,” he says.
Beyond evaluating individual students, an aggregate look at all scores in a classroom or school or district can indicate where curriculum may need to be tweaked. The test is aligned to state curriculum standards.
Seattle Public Schools also uses two complete years of MAP testing, along with a state test and other “data points,” to measure student growth and help evaluate teachers. “Low student progress results in a look at professional growth and practice to improve teaching,” Anderson says. He says it is not used to figure out which teachers to fire.
Why Do Garfield Teachers Object to the Test?
When Garfield teachers spoke about MAP in the break room and voted to boycott it (with two abstentions), one of their main concerns is that it does not align with school curriculum. “We don’t know what’s on the test until we look over the shoulders of our students taking it,” Hagopian says. Therefore teachers can’t prepare their students for the test, and it doesn’t measure whether students have actually learned what teachers are required to teach at that grade level. “So the information (from the test results) isn’t very useful to guide our instruction of individual students,” Hagopian says.
Because the test isn’t strictly aligned with grade levels, students may get questions on subjects they have not yet studied. For example, students in 9th grade algebra may see geometry questions. “If they get a question wrong, they get a simpler question and they tell me, ‘Now I feel stupid,'” Hagopian says. Since students already have to take five state-mandated tests in high school and the MAP does not affect graduation or grades, students often don’t take the test seriously and results fall off as the year progresses.
For these reasons, Hagopian and the other Garfield teachers strenuously object to MAP being used to evaluate teachers – pointing out that the Northwest Evaluation Association does not market the test for that use. “It is infuriating to teachers working around the clock, staying after school to tutor students to get students to pass, to have this test used in evaluation. It is set up to make our teachers and our kids look bad,” Hagopian says.
“The other problem is the monopolization of the computer lab three times a year,” he adds. “Students who don’t have computers at home are at a disadvantage in doing research.”
Hagopian does agree that there’s “a lot to be said for seeing student growth over time” and says Garfield teachers are not opposed to holding teachers accountable for student achievement. Some want to replace MAP with a test aligned with curriculum. Hagopian and others think a better gauge would be portfolios or ways to look at improvements in thesis writing and other skills over the course of the school year.
Too Many Standardized Tests?
The boycott touches a feeling on the part of many educators, students and parents that standardized testing is taking up too much time and does not measure critical thinking skills or creativity.
In a recent op-ed piece in The Seattle Times, Hagopian summarized that feeling: “Garfield has a long tradition of cultivating abstract thinking, lyrical innovation, trenchant debate, civic leadership, moral courage and myriad other qualities for which our society is desperate, yet which cannot be measured, or inspired, by bubbling answer choice ‘E’.”
Dr. Monty Neill, executive director of the country’s leading testing reform organization, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), endorsed the boycott Jan. 14. “Children across the U.S. suffer from far too much standardized testing that is misused to judge students, teachers and schools. We applaud Garfield High educators who refused to administer these useless exams and urge others to join in,” he wrote.
