Board urges college prep in 8th grade

The organization in charge of administering SATs and Advanced Placement exams is adding a new test to its toolkit for students, this time targeting students in the eighth grade.
Next year the College Board will introduce ReadiStep, a standardized test for eighth graders that pinpoints skills students need to succeed in high school and college. The results from ReadiStep determine whether students need to further develop skill sets and whether students are candidates for advanced classes, according to the test’s website.
The test, which the Boston Public School system has already adopted, has attracted some criticism from parents and experts who say educators test students too much instead of teaching them.
Boston University psychology professor Catherine Caldwell-Harris said children are ‘massively over-tested,’ and additional tests place more burdens not just on students, but teachers and school administrators as well.
‘The self-fulfilling prophecy is a massive drawback,’ she said. ‘Another effect is the burden that it puts on teachers to teach based on the test. Testing forces school administrators to compete with each other for higher test courses.’
Though the test is aimed at preparing students for college, Caldwell-Harris said standardized testing does not accurately reflect their capabilities.
‘There should be less testing and more room for individual experience and portfolios,’ she said.
Sarah White, a guidance counselor at Orchard Gardens, a K-8 school in Roxbury, also said children are over-tested and the tests do little to accurately assess students’ capabilities.
‘My students are over-tested as it is between all the other tests they take throughout the year and assessment testing for Massachusetts,’ she said. ‘I don’t necessarily think that standardized tests are a good indicator of what urban school kids can do,’ she said.
In addition to tests offered by the College Board, some states require students to take additional tests. Massachusetts requires 10th grade students to take the MCAS for them graduate high school.
College Board spokeswoman Jennifer Topiel questioned the quality of other academic tests.
‘Just because other exams exist and are being administered doesn’t mean that they are the best assessments for students and educators,’ she said. ‘Just because mousetraps already exist, doesn’t mean that the world should stop trying to make better mousetraps.’
Topiel said the creation of the new test has nothing to do with being challenged by other testing company competitors.
‘As a membership organization, the College Board is dedicated to serving the needs of our members, which include K-12 educators,’ she said. ‘The creation of ReadiStep is the direct result of our members asking us for such an assessment.’