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Printer-Friendly ModeMEAP testing not helping poor quality of writing in schools
June 8, 2009 —
Wagging my finger in print form has never been one of my favorite activities. I mean, who likes that downer who spends 500 words telling you what you’re doing wrong?
Nevertheless, it’s time for me to take a quick break from not wagging my finger. After that, I promise I’ll go back to brooding.
I think I was predisposed to cringe at things such as poor grammar and shoddy writing. I grew up in a household where these things were emphasized as regularly as staying away from drugs and not accepting candy from strangers driving vans. In fact, I’ve long been of the mind that my mother, a former English teacher and eternal grammar aficionado, would prefer me to experiment with drugs rather than incorrectly use lay, laid or lie in a sentence.
In short, good writing and strong mechanics were long ago ingrained in my mind as being essential. With that in mind, it’s unsettling to see the current state of writing, from our youth all the way up to those in the professional world.
Like most bad habits, it starts at a young age. Judging by test scores, our schools are failing today’s youth, as cliché as it sounds. Instead of addressing the clear deficiency in writing, Michigan schools are attempting to mask the problem, not remedy it.
Michigan school officials announced in March that many students will be excluded from taking the writing portion of the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) test next year.
Only fourth- and seventhgrade students will be required to take that portion of the test, whereas in years past, all students in grades three through eight were. Explanations for this change have ranged from money — the writing portion is the only part of the test that cannot be graded by machine — to claims that the creators of this portion set the bar too high.
It’s no secret that many Michigan school districts are hurting financially. But it seems far-fetched that money could lead to most students getting a free pass on the written portion of the test. How much could it possibly cost to have people grade the written portion? Were educators showing up and demanding a payday of $10,000 for each written test they had to evaluate?
The argument of setting the bar too high is another strike against our education system, where instead of fixing the actual problem (bad test scores), we sidestep the issue (i.e., lower test standards).
The likely, albeit more embarrassing, reason for the change is declining test scores. Test results are used in determining whether schools meet the federal goals mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act. Poor test scores could spell sanctions for the school. And hey, nobody likes to be sanctioned.
I’ll be the first to say that testing is not the ultimate way of assessing ability. Not all people are good test-takers. I’d probably screw up addressing an envelope if you told me it was part of a test. But the school systems in our country remain the venue where the majority of our youth obtain the building blocks for vital skills such as writing.
Lower standards may benefit the schools and make things easier for everyone on a short-term basis. But such standards only help generate a legion of adults who just can’t quite get the hang of that tricky your/you’re usage.