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  • It’s time to end high-stakes testing

    It’s time to end high-stakes testing


    Students in Megan Thiele Strong’s Sociology of Higher Education work in small groups.

    Credit: Courtesy of Megan Thiele Strong

    We are in midterms — the season when many students realize their course participation is already subpar. Every semester, a handful of students in my courses do not “make it.” When grades are due, there are F’s.

    The terrain of higher education is replete with obstacles. Many students are anxious and lack hope for their futures. California State University tuition hikes add to their unease.

    Students are stressed. As professors, it is on us to help shift this dynamic in the classroom.

    Last year, CSU dropped the SAT/ACT tests from its admissions criteria following research showing high-stakes exams are racist, classist, sexist and stressful. It is past time to integrate this approach into our schools and remove traditional high-stakes testing at the classroom level as well. 

    I have taught university-level courses to thousands of students in the University of California and CSU systems in my 15-year career. I currently teach several courses at San José State University, including a course on quantitative research methods.

    In fall 2020, as we moved our courses online because of Covid, I was inspired to experiment, and I eliminated high-stakes exams, both midterms and finals in all my classes. I had been considering this shift for a long time as a way to mitigate harm and boost student investment. It felt like a big step. I could hear the critics: that eliminating exams caters to weakness, gives students a free pass, makes their education worth less. And yet, I knew I could rearrange the classroom from “teaching to the test” to teaching to the students in front of me. And, in so doing, also build marketable strengths like critical, analytical and creative thinking, leadership, curiosity and love of learning. 

    I also had a hunch that learning experiences such as orating course content are every bit as effective for knowledge retention as checking boxes and regurgitating the points of an essay response. Does every student pass my class? Nope. And, I have seen immense benefits since I  transitioned away from high-stakes testing.

    How do I prioritize the student over the exam?

    First, I center dialogue in my teaching experiences. This oral engagement piece is worth nearly 20% of the student grade and I give time for it every class. It takes a variety of forms: I facilitate group conversation among students. I ask for volunteers to answer questions or discuss content with the group at large. Sometimes, I use a random number generator to call on students. Other times, I have every student answer a prompt to the full group. And, instead of student presentations, we do student facilitations where students create a version of chat stations with prompts and questions about the course content and facilitate a conversation with a small group of their peers.

    I also create outside-of-class assignments, such as students hosting watch parties with a required post-viewing discussion segment or asking them to talk to someone about particular course content and report on it. The benefits of dialogue for our students and our society span educational, social and economic realms. I have found this approach helps students build their capacity for thought, engagement and discourse both in and outside the classroom.

    Second, I adjusted my assessment strategy, moving from high-stakes exams to smaller, lower-stakes assessments; up to 35 graded learning experiences per student, per course, per semester. I incorporate content from my past exams into learning experiences, open-book quizzes and self-grade assignments. I construct my courses with varying levels of low-stakes opportunities for them to demonstrate proficiency in a topic — a video game mentality of earning points to level up, to build their investment in the course. It also makes it easier for the student — and professor — to spot gaps in understanding early, when there’s still time to address them.

    Third, and following the logic that options boost student buy-in, I increase student choice in our curriculum. Where possible, students choose content. If there are larger edited volumes on a course topic, students choose the chapters they read. In Statistics, it’s choosing which graphs from The New York Times they want to analyze.

    Fourth, I increase student agency by encouraging students to opt out of some of the curriculum. By constructing my courses with varying levels of low-stakes opportunities that build student buy-in, it feels responsible and empowering to make some content optional. As part of this strategy, I began to offer extra credit opportunities and other very low-stakes options, including learning experiences worth less than 1% of the total points. 

    Finally, and most importantly, having witnessed students in crisis over the years, and based on personal experience, I include content focused on student mental health. For example, I include optional student check-ins, where students can earn a few points by describing their experience both in and outside the classroom. I ask them, “Are you OK?”  These experiences bring to the forefront how deeply valuable and vulnerable our classroom space is.

    I trust my students, and I work to gain their trust not only by how I interact with them, but also through curricular decisions that constitute their classroom experience. Even if high-stakes testing is appealing to some students, even if it maintains a tradition that feels endemic to higher education, we know it devalues nontraditional student experience, perpetuates the wealth test as a proxy for merit, is a part of the racialized school-to-prison pipeline and is anathema to imagination.

    Students are having learning experiences, for better or for worse, in our classrooms. Education should not be a burden to bear, a hazing experience, nor an obstacle to individual worth, even if that has been its tradition. 

    If the California State University system can forgo long-standing traditions of high-stakes assessment across 23 campuses, we can do it in our university classrooms. 

    •••

    Megan Thiele Strong, Ph.D., is a professor at San José State University and a 2023-24 Public Voices Fellow at the TheOpEdProject.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • 10 LAUSD schools get a chance to opt out of standardized testing, create alternative measurements

    10 LAUSD schools get a chance to opt out of standardized testing, create alternative measurements


    CREDIT: Flickr/Alberto-G

    Ten Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) community schools will be given an opportunity to pilot new approaches to assessments in the 2025-26 academic year. 

    And once the schools adopt alternative assessments, they won’t have to participate in standardized tests, other than those mandated by state and federal governments, the district school board decided in a 4-3 vote on Tuesday. 

    The policy, which comes as part of the Supporting Meaningful Teaching and Learning in the LAUSD Community Schools Initiative, was authored by LAUSD school board President Jackie Goldberg and board members Rocio Rivas and Kelly Gonez. 

    Goldberg said that over the past several decades, corporate entities have turned education’s focus away from cultivating a love for learning — and toward test taking, which she believes has become the “be-all and judge-all of schools.” 

    She emphasized that multiple choice, standardized assessments are not the only way to gauge students’ learning. 

    “I knew where my students were, what they could read, what they understood, what they didn’t — because that’s what you do when you teach,” Goldberg said, adding that class discussions and projects can also be used to observe progress. “You’re continuously assessing.”

    Once the 10 community schools establish new “innovative, authentic, rigorous and relevant” methods of assessment, they will not be required to administer the district’s iReady diagnostic tests, which teachers have criticized for taking up large chunks of instructional time. 

    Rivas said students would be relieved of some of the anxiety and stress that comes from ongoing standardized testing. She read several messages she had received from students in the district during Tuesday’s meeting.

    “If we already take five state tests … in the end of the year, why do we take the end of the year iReady?” one student wrote in a letter to Rivas. “They both are the same reason: to show you what we know.” 

    “I was really stressed out — worrying about all of these tests. I also gained a lot of anxiety since testing started, and I could not focus on my own life because I was so stressed.” 

    LAUSD board member George McKenna, however, opposed the measure, questioning how students are supposed to learn without being given tests to work toward. He added that the initiative has “promise” but that he did not trust the policy would be implemented properly. 

    Board members Tanya Ortiz Franklin and Nick Melvoin also voted against the resolution — which will require LAUSD to establish a Supporting Meaningful Teaching and Learning Initiative that community schools can apply to be part of. 

    Schools that are part of the initiative would have to select a community school “lead tacher” who is grant funded and would receive additional professional development from both Community School Coaches and UCLA Center for Community Schooling, among others. 

    The 10 schools in the cohort, according to the resolution, will also have to adapt their instructional programs to “integrate culturally relevant curriculum, community- and project-based learning, and civic engagement.”

    “This is just one step,” Gonez said during Tuesday’s meeting. “But I really look forward to the way this resolution will be implemented — to see what innovative ideas that I know our teachers have and see how we may be able to pilot a more joyful education, a transformative education, which really brings the community schools model to full fruition.” 





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  • State takes another step toward mandatory testing for reading difficulties in 2025

    State takes another step toward mandatory testing for reading difficulties in 2025


    Students at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School in the Burbank Unified School District practice their reading skills.

    Credit: Jordan Strauss/AP Images

    A panel of reading experts has designated the tests that school districts can use to identify reading difficulties that kindergartners through second graders may have, starting next fall.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s announcement Tuesday of the selection of the reading risk screeners marks a milestone in the nearly decadelong campaign to mandate that all young students be measured for potential reading challenges, including dyslexia. California will become one of the last states to require universal literacy screening when it takes effect in 2025-26.

    To learn more

    For Frequently Asked Questions about the screening instruments for risk of reading difficulties, go here.

    For more about the screeners selected for district use, go here.

    For the letter on screening sent to district, county office and charter school superintendents, go here.

    For more on the Reading Difficulties Risk Screener Selection Panel, go here.

    Between now and then, districts will select which of four approved reading screeners they will use, and all staff members designated as the testers will undergo state-led training. The Legislature funded $25 million for that effort.

    “I know from my own challenges with dyslexia that when we help children read, we help them succeed,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

    Students will be tested annually in kindergarten through second grade. In authorizing the screeners, the Legislature and Newsom emphasized that screening will not serve as a diagnosis for reading disabilities, including dyslexia, which is estimated to affect 5% to 15% of readers. Instead, the results could lead to further evaluation and will be used for classroom supports and interventions for individual students. Parents will also receive the findings of the screenings.

    “This is a significant step toward early identification and intervention for students showing early signs of difficulty learning to read. We believe that with strong implementation, educators will be better equipped to support all learners, fostering a more inclusive environment where every child has the opportunity to thrive,” said Megan Potente, co-director of Decoding Dyslexia CA, which led the effort for universal screening. 

    A reading-difficulty screener could consist of a series of questions and simple word-reading exercises to measure students’ strengths and needs in phonemic awareness skills, decoding abilities, vocabulary and reading comprehension.  A student may be asked, for example, “What does the ‘sh’ sound like in ‘ship’”?

    Among the four designated screeners chosen is Multitudes, a $28 million, state-funded effort that Newsom championed and the University of California San Francisco Dyslexia Center developed. The 10 to 13-minute initial assessment will serve K–2 grades and be offered in English and Spanish.

    The other three are:

    Young-Suk Kim, an associate dean at UC Irvine’s School of Education, and Yesenia Guerrero, a special education teacher at Lennox School District, led the nine-member Reading Difficulties Risk Screener Selection Panel that held hearings and approved the screeners. The State Board of Education appointed the members.

    The move to establish universal screening dragged out for a decade. The California Teachers Association and advocates for English learners were initially opposed, expressing fear that students who don’t speak English would be over-identified as having a disability and qualifying for special education.

    In 2015, then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation requiring schools to assess students for dyslexia, but students weren’t required to take the evaluation.   

    In 2021, advocates for universal screening were optimistic legislation would pass, but the chair of the Assembly Education Committee, Patrick O’Donnell, refused to give it a hearing.

    “Learning to read is a little like learning to ride a bike. With practice, typical readers gradually learn to read words automatically,” CTA wrote in a letter to O’Donnell.

    Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-Glendale, reintroduced his bill the following year, but instead Newsom included funding and requirements for universal screening in his 2023-24 state budget.

    The Newsom administration and advocates for universal screening reached out to advocates for English learners to incorporate their concerns in the requirements for approving screeners and to include English learner authorities on the selection panel.

    Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, an organization that advocates for English learners statewide, said Wednesday it was clear that the panel considered the needs of English learners and she is pleased that the majority of the screeners are available in Spanish and English. 

    “Their commitment to addressing the unique needs of English learners was evident throughout the process,” Hernandez said.

    However, she said it is important for the state to provide clear guidance to districts about what level of English proficiency is required in order for students to get accurate results from a screener in English.

    “The vast majority of English learners will be screened only in English, and without evidence that these screeners are valid and reliable across different English proficiency levels, there is a risk of misidentification,” Hernandez said.

    Hernandez said Californians Together emphasized to the panel that it is important for students who are not yet fluent in English to be assessed for reading in both their native language and English, “to capture the full scope of their skills.” In addition, Hernandez said it is crucial for the state Department of Education to offer guidance to districts on selecting or developing a screener in languages other than English or Spanish.

    The article was corrected on Dec. 18 to note that the initial Multitudes assessment takes 10 to 13 minutes, not 20 minutes, depending on the grade; a followup assessment can take an additional 10 minutes.





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