TEST PREPARATION AND CURRICULUM GO TOGETHER

There is a hubbub brewing over the emphasis being put on standardized tests in our nation's schools.

Some teachers and parents are complaining that too much emphasis is being placed on test preparation.

In some districts, especially those where students fail to meet minimum achievement standards, test preparation is given such a high priority because funding and job futures rest on good test results.

There are ways the push to do well on standardized tests -- tests that allow one school's results to be measured against another school's results -- can be abused, and those pitfalls should be avoided. But the notion that emphasizing test preparation is all bad is way off base.

Some teachers and education researchers are claiming test preparation is given such high priority in some schools that classroom time for teaching basic subjects is lost.

Wait a minute.

Are these teachers and researchers saying that the tests don't measure a student's knowledge of core subjects? If that's the case, throw out the standardized tests.

The experience in Missouri, particularly with the Missouri Assessment Program tests, is that students are checked to see if they are learning in core subject areas.

As a result, districts like the Cape Girardeau School District are structuring the curriculum so that students are prepared in their daily classes for the MAP tests.

That's a fair approach to standardized tests -- which, by the way, have been around for decades.

Anyone over 50 will remember the required tests on Missouri history that every eighth grader in the state had to pass. In many cases, teachers set aside special class time to teach that test.

Thousands of Missourians can still remember much of what they learned about the state's history and government from those sessions.

There is another aspect of test preparation that can fall prey to abuse. This is the time spent on teaching students how to take a test. Such skills are valuable and need to be addressed in classrooms. Students who aren't prepared to write essay answers for a test requiring narrative skills will do much more poorly than students who have had some drilling on writing essays. This kind of preparation can be worked into regular class activities without monopolizing classroom time, as has been the experience in states like Florida where classroom funding is tied directly to performance on standardized tests.

Schools that pay attention to what they are teaching and that regularly measure student comprehension should have no problem with standardized tests that stick to basic subject content.