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Key points
- Authentic assessment is the bedrock of instructional practice, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to achieve during the pandemic.
- Some students have taken advantage of their remote setting to cheat on assessments.
- Learning gaps are becoming more pronounced rather than diminished, and underprepared and undereducated students are progressing grade levels.
Without question, this school year has been traumatic on many levels for students, teachers, parents, and district leadership. The long-term impacts of decisions made by schools throughout the pandemic are yet to be felt, but they're coming.
At the end of the 2019-2020 academic year, students in many states progressed to their next grade level without completing end-of-course summative assessments. At the time, schools were largely shuttered, and the prevailing thought was that intervention measures would be enacted to address learning gaps during the 2020-2021 school year.
The reality was that teachers and administrators had insufficient time to develop these intervention plans prior to Fall 2020. Recall that schools were fighting the clock to submit reopening plans to their respective state governments, which left precious little time to structure academic interventions.
One consistent anecdote I’ve heard from teachers, friends, and colleagues around the nation working in or with K12 schools this year was a requirement for teachers to administer a baseline assessment to determine where students stood academically in the fall of 2020.
In theory, the results of these baseline assessments could inform instructional practice throughout the year so teachers could simultaneously move students through the new curriculum while closing pre-existing learning gaps.
Here’s the problem: Teachers were, and continue to be, unable to ensure assessment authenticity due to hybrid and remote settings.
Cheating, from the beginning, has never been more rampant. Add to that, many states require student achievement to be tied to teacher evaluations to some degree. Certainly, some states have waived the requirement for this year, but for the states that have not, this leaves teachers incredibly stressed.
I predict severe grade inflation with students again progressing grade levels (or even graduating) with even more stark learning gaps than they had in September 2020. We may also see teachers leave the profession in droves, depending on the region and/or content area they work in1.
Lack of meaningful assessment data
Whether their classrooms were hybrid or fully remote, teachers have had to recreate assessments that work for students sitting in classrooms and living rooms simultaneously—and some students have been navigating the assessment landscape in creative and dubious ways.
An integral part of teaching is assessment. Teachers need to know what information students have learned and what information should be retaught. Students also benefit from knowing where they stand in a course of study. Parents, likewise, benefit from assessments so they can assist by supplementing instruction at home if possible.
Teachers have tried to maintain the integrity of closed-book assessments, so they have accurate data to inform their instruction. Old-fashioned paper-and-pencil proctored assessments are no longer feasible when students are all in different locations.
Anecdotes from around the nation have shed light on privileged students paying others to take courses for them. Artificial intelligence allowed students to copy and paste online articles and have them automatically paraphrased for exams without ever having to actually read the material. Students text one another during exams to share answers while at home2. Generally, schools either ignored the problem or spent scarce dollars on expensive subscriptions for anti-plagiarism and digital proctor software. Parents are concerned (rightfully so) about their children’s digital privacy when proctoring software is required3.
A better solution would be to create assessments that do not lend themselves to plagiarism or cheating. Move away from the standard multiple-choice and embrace critical-thinking, long-form questions.
The next problem to confront is time. There is precious little for instruction, and teachers often do not have enough time in their workday to create new assessments for each unit of learning due to our new reality. Asking them to do more at home outside of their workday would only lead to more teachers strongly considering leaving the profession.
On a macro level, this predicament is of grave concern.
Schools are determining student proficiency and readiness to progress grade levels based on potentially flawed data, and we are at a high risk of losing more highly qualified teachers annually. If we do not work towards a solution now, the reality is a future of undereducated individuals and classrooms staffed by underqualified instructors.
Conclusion
It’s time to raise more awareness of this issue around the nation.
While it is not necessarily a bad thing in such a large and diverse nation to have a decentralized system of education, there does need to be some level of cohesion. Regardless of which state or community your family resides in, there should be faith in your local schools that standards are rigorous, teachers are qualified and valued, and students will be supported while also being held accountable for their learning.
Children should learn from infancy the value of education at home. During my time in China and Japan, there was no doubt students viewed their education as a great equalizer, the door to opportunity, and a testament to their nation.
In an increasingly global landscape, competition for jobs will be fierce. The cost of living is ever increasing. We are living in politically divisive times that require civil discourse and constant fact-checking.
Is it too much to ask to hold our students accountable?
Is it too much to ask that we recruit and retain the brightest minds for our classrooms?
Other nations don’t think so. I’ve lived it. And I think we can (and should) do so as well.
References
Goldhaber, D. (2021, May 18). Analysis: COVID-19 Raised Fears of Teacher Shortages. But the Situation Varies from State to State, School to School & Subject to Subject. The 74. https://www.the74million.org/article/analysis-covid-19-raised-fears-of-….
Newton, D. (2020, August 7). Another Problem with Shifting Education Online: Cheating. Hechinger Report. https://hechingerreport.org/another-problem-with-shifting-education-onl….
Kshetri, N. (2020, November 6). Remote education is rife with threats to student privacy. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/remote-education-is-rife-with-threats-to-st….
