Ex-teacher blasts focus on tests
 

* Author Alfie Kohn tells an audience in Oakland that standardized exams
tend to measure what's least important for students 
 

BY LISA SHAFER 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

TIMES STAFF WRITER 
 

Teachers, parents, principals and governors who gloat about improved test
scores elicit a two-syllable reaction from Alfie Kohn -- uh oh.
 

"Never brag about standardized test scores," Kohn told an audience of 400 at
the Oakland High School auditorium Thursday. "If you do, you are part of the
problem."
 

A former teacher who has written numerous books that berate standardized
curricula and standardized testing, Kohn spoke for more than two hours..
Many in the audience lingered afterward for tips from one of the biggest
figures in the nation's anti-testing movement.
 

His appearance was sponsored by a coalition of education reformers and
teachers unions.
 

Especially problematic, Kohn said, are tests that are multiple-choice,
timed, norm-referenced, given to children younger than fourth grade or
administered every year -- all traits of the Stanford 9, the main component
of California's STAR tests. 
 

Over the next two months, about 4.4 million California children in grades
two to 11 are expected to take the fourth annual exams. The state also began
this year giving the high school exit exam.
 

"The closer to kids we get, the more appalled we are by what's happening,"
Kohn said. "The further away you get from the classroom, the more you think
we still need more tests."
 

Standardized tests tend to measure what's least important, said Kohn.
 

"It's easier to measure how many semicolons there are than how many good
ideas are in an essay."
 

The Stanford 9 is a norm-referenced test and was never designed to rank
schools, he said. Such tests "artificially spread" the scores so that half
the test-takers always will "look like failures."
 

These tests never will fulfill a favorite cliche of politicians -- a promise
to "leave no child behind," said Kohn. "Good God, this movement is about
ensuring that we leave children behind."
 

He predicts that the exit exam will result in the "ethnic cleansing" of
schools, much as one has in Texas. In that state, he said, about 40 percent
of blacks and Latinos in ninth grade don't make it to 12th grade. 
 

As Kohn sees it, the exams underestimate the abilities of many talented
thinkers who don't test well and may overestimate students good at
memorization and cookie-cutter essays.
 

Meanwhile, he said, the high stakes attached to the tests lead teachers to
abandon lessons that prompt deep thinking and a joy of learning. Some of the
best teachers, he said, feel so much like "test-prep technicians" that they
leave the profession.
 

Instead of bragging about higher test scores, said Kohn, people should be
asking what schools had to sacrifice to raise those scores.
 

The state spent $44 million administering the STAR tests last year, Kohn
noted, and the governor wants to pay $27 million for test-preparation
workbooks. He asked why the state would spend money this way when its school
libraries remain among the worst-stocked and -staffed in the country.
 

Schools are giving up music and art, electives and recess to prepare for the
tests. In Georgia, he said, one administrator said his school didn't need a
playground because monkey bars won't help raise achievement.
 

Contacted on Friday for reaction to Kohn's criticisms, a State Board of
Education official said the speaker uses hyperbole and doesn't know the
facts about California. For instance, he said, the governor allocates $158.5
million a year to improve school libraries.
 

Besides, said executive director John Mockler, "The best-kept secret in
California is our standards-based tests."
 

That wasn't news to Kohn. He attacked both the tests and the standards
themselves.
 

The standards, he said, would be acceptable if they were broad guidelines
that aim to improve instruction. Too often, he said, they are so specific
and numerous that they limit the ability to teach and learn subjects in
depth.
 

"It's like the stereotypical American tourist in Europe (who says) 'We have
to get to the next cathedral in 45 minutes.'"
 

Some states have set standards that are "a mile long and an inch deep," but
Gov. Gray Davis has gone further, he said. "Your governor comes along, and
it's two miles long and a millimeter deep."
 

A range of options could help stop the "deadly effects" of the standards and
accountability movement, he said, from letters to the editor to civil
disobedience.
 

Newspapers also could help, said Kohn, if they would refuse to print school
rankings and test results.
 

What test results does he want published? Those of politicians who insist
that more tests and harder tests will "raise the bar."
 

That's a phrase, Kohn noted, that originated in the world of show horses.
 

Lisa Shafer covers K-12 education. Reach her at 925-943-8345 or
lshafer@cctimes.com.