How to do the Best Benchmark Testing

Tim Shanahan

Teacher’s Question:

Dear Dr. Shanahan,

I have been searching for research around student testing. Could you point me in the direction of relevant research:

• Does testing time of the day make a difference?
• Does it matter if the testing proctor is that student's teacher for that subject?
• What effect does testing over several days in short bursts have?  

With the state test, all grades are tested on the same day at the same time. But our benchmark tests are different. We give those three times a year (a test with four passages and 35 questions, taking about two hours to complete).

Students are tested within their ELA or Math class for several days over a week for the benchmark. My students get into the testing groove, and then they must stop. They have about 30 minutes of testing time each day. Every day, it is harder for them to get into the groove. They stop reading and start just clicking away. Our morning classes do better than those tested after lunch.  

We lose 13-15 days each year of instruction within ELA for the district benchmarks. I think the tests should be completed like the state tests. My colleagues argue that 1) teachers would feel best administering tests to their students, 2) the teachers who do not teach ELA or Math would lose instructional time, and 3) non-testing teachers don't want to be responsible for administering the benchmark.

Currently only 30% of our students meet state standards on the state test. The benchmark is higher than that.    

Shanahan’s response

As my three-year-old granddaughter, Cassidy, likes to tell me, “Grandpa, you’re old!”

I’m so old that I can remember a time in schools that students took few standardized tests. Teachers might improvise an arithmetic test or perhaps use the exercises in a review unit for that purpose. But reading tests were unusual in most regular classrooms, and instruction outside the classroom wasn’t common either – this was before Title I and IDEA funding.

Teachers determined kids’ reading ability mainly by listening to them read during lessons and their judgments were subjective. That’s how they determined reading group assignments and what to tell parents about little Johnny or Janie’s reading. Kids might not even know they were being evaluated.

That may sound idyllic to some – even to me at times – but that system allowed lots of kids to fall through the cracks. If Mrs. Smith didn’t know what to do with one of her struggling charges, there was a good chance she could just ignore the problem with no one the wiser. Likewise, the incompetent reading teacher could soldier on without any need for improvement, as long as her classroom was orderly that is.

These days, everyone – school administration, the state, newspapers – all seem to be peeking over a teacher’s shoulder. Unfortunate test scores may end a superintendent’s term. Perhaps, there’ll be a new curriculum, or a new regime of professional development. Kids get pulled out or pushed back in based on those scores.

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