Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT)

Jim Hilliard is an assistant professor of risk management and insurance at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business. He has two sons at Timothy Road Elementary School.

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Hilliard: Opting out of high-stakes testing

Springtime is here again, and as surely as the trees blossom, so do announcements about state Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests on signs in front of our elementary and middle schools. These signs include encouragement such as “We’ve got this” and “CRCT Party Friday.”

Why all the drama and excitement about what was, for my generation, the boring couple of days where we bubbled in answers to show just how much we had learned relative to our peers elsewhere in the state and nation? Why the pep rallies, the post-test parties and the school environment where little actual learning happens for nearly two weeks while the students (and vicariously, the teachers and administrators) are stressed and assessed?

We would not allow the government to retain us at the hospital for two weeks of evaluation to determine the capabilities of our doctors. If our mechanics were required to hold back our vehicles for hours a day for two weeks to certify the capabilities of automakers, we would all revolt. Yet, we allow our children to be held in classrooms stripped of visual learning tools during the best hours of their days, over two weeks, to see how good our teachers are. Helpful learning aids like number lines, multiplication charts and historical timelines are all removed from the classroom during these two weeks.

With decorations and bulletin boards removed, and students sitting at desks for hours at a stretch, the classrooms look more like bland detention centers than vibrant places of learning.

It doesn’t have to be this way. An estimated 30,000 students refused to take high-stakes tests in the state of New York this year. Teachers in Chicago and Seattle have refused to administer the test. Our families are only bound to these tests because we allow it. We sit back and allow our children to become part of another grand education experiment. We have given into the temptation to measure and report the success of our schools via single metrics reported from 10 to 12 hours of testing. Thus, the professional reputations of our teachers and administrators rest on our children’s performance on these high stakes tests.

Some parents may hesitate to opt out, especially if their children are in third, fifth or eighth grade, where they have been told that a passing grade on the CRCT is necessary for promotion. Indeed, Georgia law calls for an automatic recommendation to repeat a grade if mastery of certain standards is not demonstrated on the CRCT. What few parents have been told, though, is that each retention recommendation is subject to a prompt appeal based on the entire body of the student’s work over the course of the year. And even if the student passes the CRCT, retention can still be recommended if the teacher, administrators and parents believe that the student, on balance, would benefit from another year in the same grade. However, the vast weight of academic research on the topic of retention suggests that after first grade, it’s almost always detrimental to the student.

Before allowing our children to be subjected to the oppressive and obnoxious standardized tests — tests that do nothing to promote learning and whose only possible value is to give teachers feedback for teaching their next class of students — I hope that parents will stand up and demand that their children be given alternative learning activities during the testing periods. Even better, if possible, parents can take their children out of school to visit one of the many sites in our own backyard where people stood up to oppressive and discriminatory practices in the past and learn the power of fighting injustice wherever they see it.

Far more can be learned in a few hours at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Site or any of the nearby stations on the Underground Railroad than in two weeks of standardized testing. In places like these, we can all experience lessons that will change us for a lifetime.

As long as state and federal laws demand high-stakes assessment, it is important for schools and parents to be aware of the alternatives to high-stakes testing. School districts must be more forthcoming with families about the options when a family chooses not to participate in high-stakes testing, and end the scare tactics about promotion and retention with clear guidelines about the appeal process.