A Message to Our CommunityFinding Better Ways to Assess Our StudentsWinter 2003

Testing has become the singular measure of a student’s success and in our rush to compare scores, we have lost sight of the real lives and faces behind the data.

At a board meeting, a 16-year-old student from the Juvenile Hall court school run by the Alameda County Office of Education spoke of how her teacher encouraged her to read:

“I didn’t ever read a book until I got into Juvenile Hall. ... But when I got into Juvenile Hall, I seen everybody else reading books, and everybody else talking about books and I just wanted a book. And then when I read the book … I was like hecka proud of myself. … It’s not that I didn’t think I couldn’t read a book, it’s just that I didn’t want to. But when I did read it, I was happy and I kept on reading it. … I love reading.”

This student is the reason for Alameda County’s court and community schools: to provide troubled students with extra support services; give them the confidence to succeed; and return them to their home districts as soon as possible.

Accountability through testing is essential. However, standardized tests designed for students in traditional settings for the full academic year are inappropriate for the students we serve for short periods of time in alternative mixed-grade classrooms. The average stay for students in a county-run school is 28 days, and most have already experienced failure in their academic and personal lives. Testing tells them what they already know – that they aren’t proficient at grade level. This is demoralizing.

Some people criticize ACOE because it appears test scores have dropped in our county-operated schools. However, those scores are a more accurate reflection of the low-performing schools from which students came. No other Bay Area county has as its main feeder district, a large urban district with many low-performing schools.

Only students “continuously enrolled” in court and community schools for seven months last year are included in the state assessment known as the Academic Performance Index (API). Approximately 570 were enrolled on the test day and most participated in the tests. However, only 51 students were continuously enrolled and, therefore, included in the API.

Drawing inferences about a program’s success based on this small group is statistically worthless and distracts us from the work we must do to help our students succeed.

Our time is better spent providing services that many of these students desperately need, such as our successful Character-Based Literacy (CBL), which was key in helping that 16-year-old student, and many others, discover the joy of reading. Additionally, ACOE is a leader in developing a statewide math curriculum that makes algebra and higher level skills accessible to lower functioning students. A statewide steering committee of educators from juvenile court and community schools, other alternative programs and special education, is working with the California Department of Education to develop testing models that are more appropriate for these special populations of students.

At court and community schools, we can seize this moment to impact lives while students are away from their usual peer groups and often open to reevaluating their young lives. Let’s not ruin this opportunity by subjecting them to inappropriate tests that accentuate their failures. Let’s use alternate assessments that track progress and encourage academic and social growth.

Sheila Jordan is the County Superintendent of Schools. She may be reached at 670-4144 or by e-mail at acoesuperintendent@acoe.org.