MTA Today - Fall 2016

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Standardized tests ‘don’t define us’

Danika Tyminski, who teaches at the Swift River School in New Salem,
works with a student on a writing project. Last year, all of her fifth-
graders opted out of standardized testing. “The more the community
talked about whether or not students should take the test,” she said,
“the more people agreed that these standardized tests don’t define us.”
Reprinted with permission of the Daily Hampshire Gazette. All rights reserved.

By Laura Barrett

T here’s a new twist in the state’s accountability system. Forty- one schools have seen their accountability ratings drop in recent weeks because student participation rates on standardized tests last spring fell below either 95 percent or 90 percent. But at the Swift River School in Western Massachusetts, participation was so low — only

16 percent of the eligible students took the test — that the school had “insufficient data” to generate any rating at all.

That result is just fine with Danika Tyminski, now a sixth-grade teacher at the preK- 6 school in the Union 38 Regional School District.

“The more the community talked
about whether or not students should
take the test,” she said, “the more
people agreed that these standardized
tests don’t define us.”
Tyminski said the conversation
about testing was initiated by
Johanna Bartlett, chair of the New
Salem-Wendell School Committee.
Under the leadership of Bartlett,
who taught English for 30 years, the
School Committee held a community
forum that drew about 50 teachers
and parents from New Salem and
neighboring towns.

A lively discussion followed, with some families saying that they felt testing was right for their children and others speaking up for opting out.

Later in the 2015-2016 school year, the committee approved a declaration encouraging teachers to talk to parents about the testing options at parent-teacher conferences. Parents and students were to be supported, whatever their decision.

The result was staggering. All of Tyminski’s fifth-grade students opted out, along with most of the rest of the school.

So what did students in her class do with all the time they didn’t have to spend on test preparation and administration?

“It was wonderful,” Tyminski
said. “We had read the novel Sadako
and the Thousand Paper Cranes and
we decided to put it on as a play.

We did scene blocking. The students
collaborated with the art teacher to
design and create sets. They learned
their lines and performed the play at
the end of the year.

“We also do salamander research
with the U.S. Geological Survey,” she
continued. “We are collecting data
about the effects of climate change on
the salamander population. There is no
way we would have had time to do our
research during the testing.”
A third project, she said, was
to delve into pre-algebra, which is
something the class rarely had time
to do in the past. The students used
a pan balance to better understand
equivalence and the nature of
equations.

MTA President Barbara Madeloni applauded the way Swift River and several other schools with high opt-out rates handled the issue, beginning with a communitywide discussion of the issue.

“Students, parents and educators
alike have been calling for an end
to the destructive high-stakes use of
standardized testing in our schools,”
Madeloni said. “Opting out of tests,
which are distorting education and
consuming increasing amounts of time
and money, is a legal and effective way
State law requires districts to
administer standardized tests but does
not require students to take them.
As parents and students considered
their options, the Department of
Elementary and Secondary Education

Please turn to Opt-out/Page 23

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