Questionnaire on Testing
Questionnaire on Testing (Provided by John Merrow of Learning Matters)
Students in our district will take _____ standardized, machine-scored tests during the course of the year. Is this an appropriate number?
Of these tests, _____ were selected by the district, and _____ are required by the state.
A student who attends our district from Kindergarten through graduation will take _____ standardized tests during his or her time in school. Is this number too high, too low or about right?
There are only _____ days on our 180-day calendar when a standardized test is NOT being administered.
Some test results determine a child’s promotion, while others are used to evaluate schools and teachers. Is this the right approach? How useful is this information? Should we test only a carefully drawn sample of students when we want to evaluate schools, instead of testing every student?
Right now we test all students in only _____ subjects. However, if we are going to evaluate all teachers according to their students’ scores, we will need to test in more subjects, including art, science, social studies and music. Is this advisable?
There is a —- month lag time between the administration of a test and the delivery of the results. Is this acceptable?
Our school district spends $_____ per year to buy and score standardized tests. (These out-of-pocket costs do not include the labor costs.) This amounts to less than _____ % of our annual school budget. Is this amount low, high or about right?
We devote _____ hours per year to testing, out of approximately 900 hours of actual class time during the 180-day school year. Is this amount excessive, too little, or about right?
In addition, many teachers devote another ____ hours to what is known as ‘test prep.’ The numbers vary from teacher to teacher and school to school and are difficult to pinpoint, but nevertheless the issue merits public discussion.
Last year we fired _____ teachers because their students’ scores did not go up sufficiently.
Last year we distributed $$ _____ in cash awards to teachers whose students’ scores went up well beyond the expected level.
Last year we investigated _____ incidents of alleged cheating on standardized tests, _____ by students and _____ by teachers and other administrators.
