Dear Ohio Parents,
This is an open letter to all the parents of Ohio's public school children. I am writing this letter to express my deep concerns about Ohio's Next Generation of Assessments which are being conducted online via computers or other devices such as iPads.. These assessments will run from the middle of February through the end of the year.
Students will be tested, depending on their grade, in English/Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Many students will spend more than 10 hours online doing nothing but assessments. The first portion of the assessments runs for 20 school days beginning in mid-February and ending in mid-March. This portion of the assessment is called the Performance Based Assessment (PBA). These assessments involve students manipulating objects online in a series of tasks which gauge how well a student thinks and processes information. The assessment itself works pretty well and seems to be of good quality. The second portion of the assessments then runs from mid-April to mid-May and is called the End of Year (EOY) Assessment. These assessments, again in all core subject areas depending on grade, will assess the cumulative knowledge the students have mastered throughout the school year.
Here is the problem I think all parents should be aware of. In order for school districts to accomplish the testing they must allocate enough computer testing stations for the students to complete the assessments within the windows. In many cases this means closing the computer labs and allocating them only for testing for the entire second semester of the school year. Students will not be able to use their computer labs to learn how to research, how to use word processing, how to create PowerPoint presentations, or to finish projects for their classes. The result is lost instructional time for the students using technology to enhance their learning.
The reason students lose instructional time is because the only thing that is permitted to be able to run on these computer testing stations is the testing software itself. Schools must restrict all other uses of the computers so students cannot cheat. This renders the computers useless for any other learning activities and the computers must be kept secure thereby preventing any student or teacher from using the computers for the entire second semester. School district technology staff in most district have to start configuring and locking the computer labs down for testing as soon as the second semester begins. Most school districts only have a handful of technical staff and several hundred computer testing devices to manage in several locations. This takes a lot of time for configurations and testing the equipment and software so it is ready in time for the Next Generation of Assessments.
Fortunately, my district has other devices for students to continue to learn with technology. Even with all our technology our students still lose out on using our computer labs for whole class instruction and project-based learning activities. I am deeply concerned about these lost opportunities for our students.
