She-Ra, Princess of CSAP

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.

The Upside

Perhaps I am deluding myself, but, as my blog name suggests, I believe that there is an upside to most events and to many personality characteristics as well.  Let’s say, for example, a child is stubborn – this child will not be swayed by peer pressure.  Or what if a child is disorganized?  I have found such children to be creative and adaptable.  I saw this with a disorganized child when I conducted my counseling sessions for Binder Doctor.  During these sessions, I teach elementary students to clean, repair, and organize binders, starting with their own.  Then they “practice” as Binder Doctors on other students’ binders during a “Binder Doctor Clinic”.  One student-doctor cut beautiful shapes out of colorful duct tape (used to repair binders) and offered a binder decorating service.  Another offered a “scented desk” by using a cotton ball drenched in fragrance – perfume probably borrowed from her mother’s dresser.  A male Binder Doctor admired that idea and used an Axe sample in his desk. The day that it wafted through the entire 4^th and 5^th grade wing was memorable.  My favorite creation was a marketing idea from a recent Binder Doctor graduate.  He suggested that we would get more business by changing the name of it to Pimp my Binder.  If you are interested in a small group intervention for reluctant organizers, check out Pimp my Binder – I mean Binder Doctor –  here.