She-Ra was the name I chose for my character when I was
playing Dungeons & Dragons with my young sons (apologies to the He-Man
franchise). It is also my after-school
staff volleyball name, and my nickname for my role as School CSAP
coordinator. CSAP stands for Colorado
State Assessment Program. Now it is
called TCAP (Transitional Colorado Assessment Program), as it is transitioning
to the national standards. I was in
charge of my school’s CSAP testing for many years, hence the title of this
article. Since I was trained as a school
psychologist to give cognitive assessments, I appreciate the value of a
reliable, valid, well-standardized test.
I like making decisions based on data, and CSAP is a well-designed test.
For the student who is plus or minus one
to two grade levels , the CSAP is a good measure of factual knowledge and some
associative reasoning. For students who
are more than two grade levels below their current grade placement, the test is
a nightmare.
There is a category for the proctor to mark on the back of
the test booklet called “Code #7, Extreme Frustration.” You are required to place the test in front
of a student who can’t read it and watch him/her struggle until he/she is in
tears, mad, dejected, and feeling defective.
Once he/she refuses to continue, you can then take the test away. Then I fill in the “Extreme Frustration”
bubble and the student gets to read a book (preferably at his/her reading level)
until the other students are finished.
The student must repeat this performance with each subject area
booklet. From experience, I can tell you
that it does not get any easier for the student. Some do get hardened and
randomly fill in bubbles and copy random words. It is a bad two weeks in the
education of that child.
There is an alternative form of the test, but in Colorado
you have to be a non-reader to qualify for it.
However, if you are an immigrant from a non-English speaking country and
have been in the USA for at least one year, you don’t qualify for the alternate
test, regardless of how poor your English reading skills are, and you are
required to take the regular grade level test.
During TCAP, I go through a box of tissues, some tissues for the
students, and some for me. To add insult to injury, the test results provide no
information that you did not already know before
putting the student through this excruciating exercise.
A student might qualify to have a subject test read aloud
(other than the reading test). However,
this presumes that a student’s oral comprehension is high enough to benefit
from it.
I have no problem telling a student that he or she is behind
and is going to have to work extra hard and put in extra time. I tell them that
they can’t give up if they want to catch up. However, for two weeks a year,
these students get to repeatedly practice giving up.
On a positive note, because I like to give my students every
advantage possible, I review basic test-taking skills with them each year. There is an “unspoken strategy” for
approaching multiple choice questions and other constructed responses. I start by telling the students that the
point of the test is to answer the questions.
The goal is not to give five examples when they ask for two, and it is
not to make perfect circles in the bubbles.
We also talk about eliminating choices and making educated guesses. If you are interested in reviewing
test-taking strategies with your students, see my PowerPoint lesson Review Test-taking
Strategies by clicking
here.
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