Anderson Prep Pre-Academy students Scarlett Lopez, front left, and MarRiel Brown, front right, work on reading intervention strategies as Dezmon Logan is assisted by Ms. Brown in the background Thursday afternoon. Submitted photo
ALEXANDRIA — Superintendents of schools and districts serving students in Madison County aren’t thrilled at the prospect of returning to standardized testing, saying any results will be useless and that if testing is mandated they should be held harmless.
South Madison Community Schools Superintendent Mark Hall said ILEARN test results should not be compared to 2019 test results and should be handled the way a baseline test for an all new testing program would be treated.
“The student results of those tests cannot be meaningfully compared to prior school years because prior school years were not impacted by a global pandemic,” he said. “In addition, schools should be held harmless because the tests were designed to measure student learning in a typical year, not one that has been filled with constant changes and disruptions.”
Alexandria Community Schools Superintendent Melissa Brisco said there are too many variables that would affect the accuracy of the results.
“It assumes we will get an accurate measurement of where students are. It assumes all students will take the assessments and the information will be valid and reliable,” she said.
Commander Jill Barker, superintendent at Anderson Preparatory Academy, agreed.
“I believe that we cannot fully assess a baseline of loss until at least Fall 2021, and our time and resources are better spent focusing on students,” she said. “I think that the testing is a waste of critical instructional time and will not help us in making key academic decisions for the 2021-2022 school year.”
All testing will manage to do, Barker said, is put additional stress on students and staff when they already are operating under an unusually stressful situation with COVID-19.
“The academic and (social-emotional learning) impact of COVID will result in years’ worth of struggles, and adding to this while we’re still in the middle of it just seems counterintuitive, especially since we will not have real-time access to the data and won’t be able to administer it to all students,” she said.
APA already is relying on NWEA testing data from the fall and winter sessions to help plan summer and 2021-2022 instructional interventions, Barker said.
“Data received over the summer from ILEARN will not be able to help us in a timely manner and the benefits of that data do not outweigh the benefits of having that extra instructional time. We need every second we can possibly get with our students,” she said.
Another problem, the superintendents said, is that many students are engaged in all-virtual education through which they cannot be tested.
“We are hopeful that we will have all of our students in person during the testing windows, but in the event that we do not, we will do the best to test those that are in-person,” South Madison’s Hall said.
Barker said what testing has taken place at APA has been in small groups with social distancing, in some cases, up to 12 feet.
“We’ve had to get very creative and use alternate schedules so that in-person and virtual students are not exposed to each other,” she said. “Our families have been receptive for the most part, but there is a lot of fear and anxiety with our virtual families and students. We do have a few virtual families who have already informed us that there is no way that they will be coming in to do the test. Some are open to us administering it in the home, but given the length of the test and required security measures, it’s just not possible.”
Barker said she believes the schools should be held harmless not only this school year but next.
“As a public charter school leader, I am supportive of accountability in general as long as it is focused on doing what’s best for students; however, I absolutely support holding all schools harmless due to circumstances beyond their control,” she said. “There are too many external factors that come in to play regarding the potential results of this data that are beyond the school’s control.”
There isn’t much fairness in applying testing at this time because there have been too many inequities, Barker said.
“Schools were left to figure it out and retrain teachers to teach in a virtual environment without having the opportunity to prepare students to learn in a full virtual environment,” she said. “Socio-economic and racial disparities also need to be considered given the access to reliable computers and internet as well as having supports available in the home.”
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