“You’re the best, on the test,” chanted early elementary students at Dolores Huerta Friday.
Lining the halls with maracas, egg shakers and sleigh bells, they cheered and high-fived a parade of their peers, reminding them “knowledge is power” ahead of Monday’s testing.
State testing begins Monday for Oklahoma’s third through eighth graders. This weeks-long testing window follows months of classroom preparation, with results measuring student progress against state standards.
Dolores Huerta third grader Isaiah Guevara, 8, is nervous for his first round of state testing. He’s taken five practice tests and worries he’ll get things wrong but is confident about the hard parts. Cheers from his fellow students made him happy, and he’ll picture the parade just before his assessment Monday.
From third through eighth grade, all Oklahoma students take an English language arts and math assessment each year as required by federal law. Science exams are added in fifth and eighth grade, then a college and career readiness assessment in 11th that tests science and history.
These assessments are not single-day measurements of student intelligence, Tulsa educators say, but help districts track the long-term growth of each grade — and where they are falling behind. Student scores also factor into the grades for each district in the Oklahoma School Report Card system.
“It’s not about one class or one student,” said Ayn Grubb, an academic content manager at Tulsa Public Schools. “It’s about, what are the skills that students in general were struggling with and how can we help make that stronger this year?”
State assessments use pattern-based grading, meaning questions are weighted based on their difficulty. Two students could get the same number of questions correct but have a different outcome. It is not a time-restricted test, so students are allowed to take as much time as they need to finish.
Assessments are scored on four levels: below basic, basic, proficient and advanced. Proficient is considered “on-track” and shows students are ready for their next grade level.
Just more than 35% of Union students and 25% of TPS students scored proficient and above on ELA testing last school year.
“We encourage them to take their time, be confident, show what they know, what they learned,” said Todd Nelson, senior executive director of research-design-assessment at Union. “They’ve been learning all year long.”
The State Department of Education has several family resources for spring testing.
- The Parent Portal Toolkit has more information on scores and supporting your student academically.
- Parent, Student, Teacher Guides break down each assessment for every grade, with test examples, in English and Spanish.
- Prescores will be released in late June and can be accessed in this portal.
The most important role for families in the testing period, Grubb said, is making sure students sleep, eat breakfast and relax before exams. Nelson said families should become familiar with each site’s testing schedule and make sure students get to school for assessment days.
It’s a stressful time for everyone, educators say. Preparing for spring testing takes months of work at every level of the district.
All teachers who administer assessments must go through a training program. District leaders work with test coordinators at each school site to plan logistics — accommodations, possible technology errors or irregularities like bells going off in the middle of a test. Those coordinators host preparation sessions with teachers well ahead of testing, preparing them on how to talk with students about assessments and how their schedules will change.
“There are lots of moving pieces to try and create the best testing environments,’ said Nia Schell, testing and data specialist at Union. “We’re going to talk (teachers) through everything, make sure you feel calm and confident, and that you’re not lacking in any organization or information from testing.”
That work comes at a sizable cost of instructional time, Schell said.
Each test takes about four hours, but she estimates about two days lost to testing preparation at each site. All teachers overseeing assessments need to take down any potential visual aids in their classrooms before testing and prepare for all the scripted instructions involved. Teachers who aren’t testing students still need to adjust, being mindful of not adding too much on with homework or additional assignments.
Union’s Eighth Grade Center moves to block scheduling for two weeks of the year during the testing period. At the elementary level, testing can take even longer.
“(Building Testing Coordinators) have a huge feat in front of them,” said Jennifer McIntyre, director of data-driven instruction at Tulsa Public Schools. “It is a lot of work to do all the things. And all the accommodated sessions, but they pull it together, they do a great job.”
In tandem with other district assessments, like MAP Growth at TPS, educators acknowledge it can feel like a lot of testing.
The test itself, Schell and Nelson say, isn’t always the most helpful tool for improving instruction either — the data provided by the state is “fairly general.” The value, they say, is in preparing students for the real world.
“Testing is a life skill,” said Schell. “Truthfully, in the market today almost every career requires some form of testing.”
At Dolores Huerta, they hope months of instruction and a parade help students enter the test calm and armed with knowledge.
“We wanted to get everyone involved in it and start getting the little kids in that frame of mind before they get there,” said Principal Janice Thoumire.
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