An update on the 3rd Grade Social Studies SOL test debate: The Superintendent of schools for Virginia has found a way to keep the SOL social studies test until we can do the thorough review of our entire testing approach for social studies and come up with the new vision that I write about here. She is likely going to have to cut other programs and/or staff or access stimulus money in order to do this. The proposal to eliminate the test came out of a desire to give teachers more time and flexibility. But the speed of the proposal was driven almost entirely by a need to free up resources to deal with rising assessment costs, declining state revenues and growing federal requirements for assessment. If stimulus money can’t help, this decision will likely force staff and program cuts elsewhere to offset the cost of this test. Still, I support taking a step back on the question of eliminating this test as the issues at stake are much larger than just whether we have a third grade social studies test or not. This debate has made it clear we need to look much broader at how and why we test.
We need to think carefully about what assessment is for. Is it a tool to help teachers help kids and to measure school progress, or is it a tool to micro-manage teaching down to each specific lesson? The vigorous advocacy to keep the social studies SOL has made it clear to me that some see the SOL as more than an assessment tool to help teachers know what skills their kids lack and to help our schools understand where improvements are needed. Whether intended or not, it has clearly become a micro-management tool to legislate much of the school day. Worries that teachers won’t teach the content they are obligated to teach and that school systems and school boards will walk away from their obligations to our kids and our educational standards drove much of the concern about eliminating the social studies SOL.
When museum and tourism officials see the SOL as essential to get schools to take kids on field trips (a comment made frequently about the test), I think we can agree we need to take a step back and talk about what is happening in our schools and what the test is for. When we fight harder for a test (the effort to keep the SOL created a cascade of letters to the state board of education and led to emergency meetings of general assembly committees) than we do to fund the teachers and schools that teach the content we are testing, I think we need to take time to understand where we are heading. When we can all agree about the need for standards and the need to require the teaching of specific content but fail to provide the resources to teach it, we have to ask if we are being honest with ourselves, our students and families, our teachers or education in general.
If we concede (or perhaps embrace) the reality that NCLB combined with state assessments have created a culture where schools “only” teach what is tested, then we have to ask ourselves two questions. First, are there are other things we should be testing? What about health and P.E. so we can be sure kids know how to take care of themselves (to help fight childhood obesity)? Or art and music (arguably as important to our culture as history and social studies). Perhaps we should consider required foreign language tests so our kids can compete in a very competitive world. And secondly, is our evolving testing culture and the expectations it sets sustainable given the constraints of the number of days in our school year, the way we fund our schools, the length of our school day, and the overall resources we provide to education?
During the social studies SOL debate a number of people contacted me to say that social studies, history and economics are more important than math or reading. Do we really want to pit important content areas against each other like that? If kids can’t read or do math, how can they learn history or economics? If teaching to the test is pitting those subjects against each other we have to take a hard look at how we test, how we teach and the resources we are providing to our teachers to accomplish their growing list of legislated tasks.
I strongly support the need for assessment and very high standards. I think they are a very important part of creating great schools. But I don’t think our current assessment system was designed to carry the weight that is now being placed upon it. We need to look at what the best research tells us about teaching and learning, set clear expectations for what state and national assessment does and does not do, and then upgrade our assessment system to line up with that research and our shared expectations. And we need to be sure that the goals we enshrine in our assessment system are reflected in the way we fund our schools. The vision of a better and smarter assessment system still holds. Virginia has always been a leader in this area. We now have some time to lead and to get this right.
