Current Issues in Education > Volume 6, 2003 > Number 10

Citation Information

Hinde, E. R. (2003, May 27). The tyranny of the test: Elementary teachers' conceptualizations of the effects of state standards and mandated tests on their practice. Current Issues in Education [On-line], 6(10). Available: http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume6/number10/

The Tyranny of the Test: Elementary Teachers' Conceptualizations of the Effects of State Standards and Mandated Tests on Their Practice

Elizabeth R. Hinde
Arizona State University East

Abstract

National reform agendas, such as the standards movement and the drive to make teachers accountable through standardized tests, do not address teachers' perceptions of how change affects their own professional lives. Through focus groups and intensive participant observation methods, this study describes why and how elementary teachers from a large district in the Southwestern United States believe they have made significant changes in their professional lives as a result of state standards and the mandated assessments that accompany them. The study gives credence to teachers' own words and supports them wherever possible with findings from other research literature.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Methods and Procedures
• Focus Groups
• Participant Observation
• Templeton, USA
• Teachers' Conceptualizations of the Effects of Standards and Testing
• A Brief History of the Standards Movement
• The Teachers Speak
• Conclusion
• End Notes
• References
• Appendix A - Teacher Descriptions

Introduction

I began my teaching career when the landmark study, A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), hit the national headlines. Even though the study has been criticized as being fraught with misleading information to the point of fabrication (Berliner & Biddle, 1995), the federal government and business leaders cried out for curricular and pedagogical reforms in response to the fear of the economic demise of our society that this publication predicted. Politicos, business leaders, and the public at large called upon educators at all levels, pre-K-12, to change their practices, procedures, policies, and/or philosophies in one way or another as a result of the fear that this document attempted to instill. The pressure to change continues today. Among other things, teachers express the feeling that they are pressured to raise standardized test scores and teach to state-mandated, "high-stakes" sets of performance standards for their students, which precipitates change in the curricula they follow and/or their instructional practices.

It is an inescapable reality that teachers must respond somehow to educational reform initiatives that are sweeping the nation (Hargreaves, 1997). Fullan and Hargreaves (as cited in Fullan, 1997) argue that teachers and principals must take the initiative in breaking the cycle of continually " . . . being on the receiving end of reform" (p. 1). Clearly we know that change is often imposed on teachers from outside sources, but we just as clearly do not know how teachers perceive the change process themselves. Nor do we know why they initiate efforts to transform their classroom practices. We have little understanding about the ways that they conceptualize change and the ways they react to reform initiatives. National reform agendas and the research agendas that typically support them do not address teachers' perceptions of how change affects their own pedagogy. In view of this gap in our knowledge about the change process, the focus of this study becomes why and how teachers believe they have made significant changes in their practice as a result of state standards and the mandated assessments that accompany them. The changes that teachers conceptualize as having occurred are related in this study by experienced, practicing elementary schoolteachers. The voices of teachers are honored in my attempt to analyze the effects the state standards and assessments have had on their pedagogy.

When I conducted this study, I was an elementary school teacher on professional leave for the purposes of completing a doctorate. My research perspective was formed and shaped from my 18 years of teaching experience in a school district in the Southwest (to be described later). The lenses through which I viewed and interpreted the data (which you will be reading shortly) are at least initially, those of a schoolteacher not unlike the teachers who participated in this study. What effects do elementary teachers believe the standards and assessments have had on their practice?

Methods and Procedures

From the outset of this study, my intent was to gain a deeper understanding of the teachers' conceptualizations of how the standards and tests have affected their practice. It was never my intention to derive an absolute answer to a research question. In the sense that the goal of my research was to enhance meaning and not provide definitive answers to a preexisting problem, my study falls under the umbrella of qualitative research. As opposed to traditional positivist research, which seeks to define the world "in a deductive fashion by universal laws that assert definite and unproblematic relationships" (Altheide and Johnson, 1994), the goal of my research was to gain an understanding of the ways in which teachers conceptualized the change process. In other words, I was striving to understand teachers' thought processes and motives as they related to making changes in their professional lives. As Greene (1997) explained, for qualitative researchers, "The search is for understanding rather than explanation; the researchers are striving for adequacy of interpretation rather than prediction and control" (p. 189).

Although my study falls under the qualitative research umbrella, it can also be described as interpretive and narrative research as well. Shulman (as cited in Ross, Cornett, and McCutcheon, 1992) asserted that "interpretive researchers pose questions not in a search for explanatory laws, but in a search for meaning" (p.7). I was not interested in uncovering universal laws or principles concerning the effects of the standards and tests on teachers; I tried instead to understand the reasons why participating teachers think they have changed their practice as a result of the standards and assessments. I was searching for meaning as applied to their conceptualizations. According to Ross, Cornett, and McCutcheon (1992), "Interpretive researchers employ participant observation methods or conduct extensive and open-ended interviews in a single setting and report their findings in narrative form without making generalizations beyond the context studied" (p. 7). The context, in my case, was the city and school district of Templeton.

Sixteen elementary teachers from various schools within the Templeton School District^[1] (as described in the next section) participated in this study. Their current teaching assignments included kindergarten through eighth grades, although they had taught a variety of other levels and subjects throughout their careers. Their professional experience varied from 12 to 35 years. A description of each teacher's experience is found in Table 1 ^[2] .

Table 1: Teacher Descriptions

The participants in this study generally fit the profile of the typical elementary public school teacher in the United States (National Center for Education Statistics, 1997): a white (non-Hispanic) woman in her forties with 10 to 20 years of teaching experience.

There were two phases to my data collection that I performed within the same 6-month period: a series of focus group interviews and intensive participant observation. I was given permission by the Templeton Unified School District to conduct my research primarily during the first semester of the school year, although I required some time in the second semester for the teachers to read and clarify the sections of the study that applied to them. These phases occurred concurrently; I conducted focus groups during the same period that I was a participant observer in two teachers' classrooms, although the majority of the focus group interviews were completed prior to intensive participant observation.

Although occurring concurrently, the participant observation teachers were not involved in the focus groups. Separating the focus group and participant observation teachers contributed to the integrity of the study in that I was able to observe and note the practices and comments of the participant observation teachers that were similar to the conceptualizations that the focus group teachers related to me. The result of the interplay between the two forms of data collection enabled me to observe whether or not the teaching practices that I observed and the conceptualizations that I heard from the participant observation teachers were corroborated by the reflections of the focus group teachers. Additionally, I was able to relate the focus group teachers' discussions to my analyses of the participant observation teachers' actions in ways that allowed me to interpret them more productively.

Focus Groups

I chose to conduct focus group interviews rather than other forms of data collection because I wanted to engage in conversations with teachers. In conversation, I could respond to their comments and ask pointed questions directly related to their responses. Schensul, LeCompte, Nastasi, and Borgatti (1999) note that focus groups are often more useful than surveys in collecting data because " . . . they are perceived as being less expensive than surveys while providing more information than individual interviews about how people think and feel about products or issues" (p. 61). These researchers further explain that focus groups " . . . can provide a large amount of data in relatively short periods of time, provided that they are set in the context of other data collection techniques" (Schensul, LeCompte, Nastasi, and Borgatti, 1999, p. 61). I compared and contrasted the findings of the focus groups with the data I retrieved from the participant observation teachers' interviews, journal entries, and my own analyses of their pedagogy as it relates to their perceptions of change. In addition, I examined the focus group teachers' conceptualizations of change in light of findings reported in the research literature.

Fourteen kindergarten through sixth grade teachers including a special education teacher and a math/reading resource teacher volunteered to participate in the focus groups (four participants from one school and five from each of two other schools). The groups met a total of five times throughout the first semester of the 2001-2002 school year. Since the Templeton Unified School District is a very large urban district (as described later), it is separated into three geographic regions. Teachers from schools representing each of the three regions participated in the study.

My final contact with the focus group participants was after I completed the first draft of the study. Each informant read through the study and commented on its contents. Collectively, they clarified their thoughts and words and further elaborated on their conceptualizations. I made revisions according to their suggestions and further reflections.

Participant Observation

Participant observation is defined as "a data collection technique that requires the researcher to be present at, involved in, and recording the routine daily activities with people in the field setting" (Schensul, Schensul, and LeCompte, 1999). The people in the field setting, in my case, were two schoolteachers (as described below) who allowed me to observe and become involved in their classroom routines. I sat quietly in the backs of their classrooms recording their interactions with students and other staff, writing detailed descriptions of their classrooms, watching their students respond to them, and sensing the climates that permeated their rooms.

Mary Jones^[3] , a sixth grade teacher in her twentieth year of teaching, was the first participant in this phase of my study. She had previously taught in grades 2, 3, and 5. Mary had also taught at two other Templeton schools prior to the year I observed her. The second participant was Carol Smith, an eighth grade science teacher. It was Carol's fifteenth year of teaching, but her first foray into the world of junior high school. Her previous 14 years were spent in third and fourth grades at two different Templeton schools.

According to Bogdewic (as cited in Schensul, et. al., 1999) an advantage of participant observation is " . . . the opportunity to witness events that outsiders would not be invited to attend, and to access situations that might be hidden from the public . . . activities that groups use to maintain a special identity" (pp. 92-93). I was afforded many such opportunities while I conducted my participant observations, in that I viewed Mary and Carol performing activities that are usually seen only in the context of a classroom. For example, I observed activities such as spontaneous responses to and interactions among each teacher and her students, the adjustments the teachers made to their instruction during their lessons, and their facial expressions and gestures during the course of the day (e.g., rolling their eyes during a frustrating incident, turning their backs on students and snickering at humorous events). These events are unplanned and typically hidden from public view. They added to my understanding of the professional character of the teachers and the climates that they created in their classrooms, which enhanced my understanding of each teacher.

Schensul, Schensul, and LeCompte (1999) noted, "Observation is always filtered through the researcher's interpretive frames" (p.95). I interpreted my observations through the frames of an experienced classroom teacher tempered with the perspective of a qualitative researcher. My frames were fashioned by my years of teaching fifth and sixth grades, and by my experiences in a doctoral program. In addition, like the teachers in this study, I fit the profile of the average classroom teacher: a white woman in her forties with (in my case) 18 years of teaching experience. I am also similar to the participant observation teachers in that, like them, I am married and have children. So my familial status and my years in the classroom placed me on common ground with Mary and Carol. I was familiar with the vernacular they employed and with the references they made that pertained to district policies and procedures. In effect, we were comfortable with one another.

I visited the classrooms of Mary and Carol over a period of 6 months during the 2001-2002 school year. My observation schedule varied from 1 to 3 hours a day, two to three times a week. I formally interviewed them twice, meetings in which I asked them pre-determined questions. I was interested in uncovering their insights into the effects of standards and tests on their practice and asked questions that led our discussion in that direction. I tape recorded and later transcribed these interviews for analysis.

We also engaged in numerous informal interactions and conversations. These give-and-takes took place between classes and while walking to and from the office, copy room, and various other places throughout their schools. They differed from the formal interviews in that they were spontaneous conversations that usually were related to what the teachers were doing in class, their families or personal lives, or something that they had written in their journals (as described below).

I observed them teaching and interacting with students and other faculty and staff. I audiotaped our formal interviews, but I did not record our informal ones and did not record anything in the presence of students (as per district requirements). I recorded those interactions as handwritten field notes. Whether or not a tape was recording, I took detailed notes about the teachers' interactions with students and staff, of their classrooms and schools, and of my thoughts and impressions of the day's events. For the most part, I was a silent observer in their classes.

In addition, Mary and Carol wrote journal entries capturing their reflections. From their journal entries I gleaned much information about their thoughts on how they have changed in their careers. For the purposes of this paper, I focused on the entries concerning their thoughts about the standards and tests.

Like the focus groups, I transcribed my notes and recordings of these formal and informal interviews. I noted excerpts in the transcripts that referenced the standards and tests and compared them to the descriptions by the focus groups. The focus group teachers and the participant observation teachers expressed strikingly similar thoughts and words regarding the standards and assessments.

Although the focus group and participant observation teachers did not know each other and taught in different schools, they were all employed by the same district, in the community I call Templeton.

Templeton, USA

Teaching is a profession about which both educators and non-educators have strong opinions. However, it is not feasible to understand teachers without understanding the contexts in which they teach. In an effort to come to an understanding of teachers, it is necessary and prudent to become acquainted with the contexts in which the teachers involved in this study conducted their practice. With that in mind, I now introduce you to the city and school district of Templeton, USA.

According to the most recent census, the city of Templeton is more populated than Minneapolis, but has fewer people than Los Angeles. It covers over 120 square miles of the hot, dry desert of the American Southwest. The school district that includes the city limits of Templeton (but stretches across its boundaries) takes pride in being the largest in the state. It encompasses about 200 square miles, causing some of its over 80 schools to spill into surrounding towns and cities. Even though there is a substantial number of Mexican and Native Americans who live there, the residents of Templeton are predominantly white and middle class. A little over 20 percent of the 74,000 students who attend Templeton schools have Spanish surnames. So for every student named Garcia in most teachers' grade books, there are four named Smith or Jones. This relative lack of diversity is true for most Templeton schools, with the exception of the ones located in the city's core, where housing is low-rent and crime is high-profile. As in many American cities, the minority population (in this case, people of Mexican heritage and African Americans) is relegated to the inner-city. Teachers who work in the schools in these neighborhoods serve a population that is more ethnically diverse than that of the other schools. There is a small percentage of Native American students in Templeton schools as well. Most of these children attend one of the schools located near the reservation on the north side of town.

The city of Templeton, which is in the shadow of one of the largest cities in the country, has always been promoted by community leaders as being "family friendly" and the many parks and playgrounds attest to that. Family, church, and schools are exalted by city leaders, especially at election time when billboards and posters line the streets with pictures of candidates surrounded by children (presumably their own). Churches have always been built in close proximity to the high schools, and Templeton is one of the few school districts in the country that allow public high school students to receive credit for classes taken in a religious seminary.

Templeton schools are relatively well funded (compared with other schools in the state), and school board members who project images that align with the prevailing perceptions of family, church, and school are repeatedly elected. These governing boards have always hired superintendents who perpetuate the predominant images of family, church, and school. These superintendents then oversee the hiring of administrators who project the same philosophical bent. These administrators then seek principals who fit the mold, who then recruit teachers who fit the profile.

While it is true that Templeton students are predominantly white, these white students come from homes that range from million dollar mansions on the northeast side of town to trailer homes or low-rent apartments on the far-east side of the district. Templeton also serves a small group of transient students whose parents come to the Southwest to escape harsh winters, only to leave again when the desert floor heats up their usually bare feet. These students are typically found in the schools on the east side of the district, along with the children who live in the many trailer parks located there. It was in one of these schools that I worked for 13 of my 18 years as a Templeton teacher.

Now, years later, I am reflecting on the ways in which selected Templeton teachers are affected by the state standards and their accompanying assessments. Templeton, like many cities in the burgeoning Southwest, is growing rapidly. Change is in the air, not only in the cities, but with teachers as well. In this era of school reform, teachers are mandated to change or adapt their pedagogy in order to teach to certain standards, succumb to political pressures, or respond to societal problems or issues. How do teachers conceptualize change in their careers as a result of the standards and tests?

Teachers' Conceptualizations of the Effects of Standards and Testing

A Brief History of the Standards Movement

To gain a deeper appreciation of the political context in which my study teachers were embedded, I will begin discussing teachers' thoughts of the Standards/Testing category with a brief history of the standards movement. This phenomenon resulted in the Templeton district's renewed emphasis on testing to which the teachers were required to respond.

The standards movement has its roots in the much-heralded report, A Nation at Risk. Out of fear that a national economic failure would result due to the illiterate, unskilled work force that the report surmised our schools were producing, the Reagan and Bush (George H. W. Bush) administrations took up the gauntlet and proceeded to initiate massive education reforms. Although much of that report has been highly criticized as being misleading and has led to what has been described as education's "manufactured crisis" (Berliner and Biddle, 1995), the public outcry generated by the report has resulted in sweeping changes in our schools.

Tucker and Codding (1998) note that a defining moment for the beginning of the standards movement came in 1989, when President Bush held a summit of the nation's governors to address education problems in our country. That meeting spawned the National Education Goals Panel (NEGP). This agency produced a set of purpose statements that later provided the foundation for broad school-improvement legislation, Goals 2000: Educate America Act of 1992. Some of those goals were as Merrow (2001) stated, "foolishly optimistic." For example, the first stipulated that "All children will start school ready to learn" despite the reality that only about 50% of all 3- and 4-year-olds were enrolled in preschool at the time (Merrow, 2001, p. 654). Other goals were realistic, but were so obvious and simplistic that they were virtually met at the time of their announcement.

The standards movement got started in earnest when the NEGP chairman, Governor Roy Romer of Colorado, insisted that goals were not specific enough and began the fight for national and state standards and accompanying assessments to measure the degree to which they would be achieved. The federal government, spearheaded by Diane Ravitch (Assistant Secretary of Education for Research and Improvement in the George H. W. Bush administration), provided funds to national subject-matter organizations and other agencies to begin the process of developing standards in each of their disciplines. Al Shanker, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), threw his political weight behind the fledgling standards movement as well. The early 1990s saw national organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), develop national standards for their respective disciplines. Even as the development process continued, Pew Charitable Trusts began providing sizable grants not only to national organizations but also to state governments to develop curriculum standards. The standards movement had begun on multiple fronts.

Even though the movement was underway, it was not until the business community became involved that the standards became popularized and started having a ripple effect on practices in the schools. Lou Gerstner (CEO of IBM), Frank Shontz (the Boeing Corporation), John Clendenin (Bell South), George Fisher (Eastman Kodak), and many other business leaders joined governors for the Second National Education Summit in New York City in 1996 (Tucker and Codding, 1998). The outcome was a commitment by the governors to produce academic standards in their respective states within 2 years. They reconvened for the Third National Education Summit in 1999, with governors, business leaders, and President Clinton in attendance. As a result of these summits involving both business leaders and politicians (interestingly enough, few professional educators were in attendance), measurements to assess the fledgling standards became the priority. In fact, the testing aspect soon outpaced formation of content area standards (Merrow, 2001).

The Teachers Speak

With the movement's history in mind, the following section describes how my study teachers' conceptualized the ways in which the emphasis on the standards and testing have changed their professional lives. Additionally, these teachers have reacted, sometimes bitterly, to forced adjustments to their practice.

One participating teacher succinctly summarized the feelings of her peers concerning the current emphasis on standardized test scores when she said, "When people in education base their success as an educator on the test results, something is sick and wrong" (Focus Group Participant #13). In an ideal world, teachers would have time to internalize the standards, adjust their teaching to their demands, gather the necessary instructional resources, receive training, and even provide input into revisions of the standards. Only at that point would assessments be introduced and implemented as a tool for enhancing teaching and the curriculum. However, in the real world, assessments (especially in language arts and math) were presented to teachers along with the standards and, in many cases, instead of the standards. Teachers were introduced to standards through the assessments instead of the other way around. Teachers soon perceived the assessments as a threat instead of a tool, and felt enormous pressure to raise test scores instead of teaching a learner-appropriate curriculum.

Participant teachers generally considered the standards as tools or as another set of curriculum guides. However, they were strongly opposed to the emphasis placed on the accompanying mandated tests because of the perceived effects that these tests would exert on their students and the school environment. In our conversations, teachers often used phrases such as "gun to the head" or "knife to the throat" when describing the use of standardized tests in their classrooms, as this teacher did so emotionally:

I feel like we have a little ax over our heads or whatever. Because there is so much pressure for us to meet our goals so the whole school can get money . . . And you kind of feel like, God, you'd hate to be the one grade level that makes the school not get their money.

Focus Group Participant #1

To these teachers, tying money to students' test performance is the most offensive aspect of the state-mandated instruments. A mandated state test is administered in language arts and mathematics in the third, fifth, and eighth grades in the state as well as at the high school level. Teachers explained that schools that show improvement on the tests from one year to the next are financially rewarded in the Templeton district. The fact that all school personnel receive bonuses for improved test scores is having an increasingly negative effect on collegiality in the schools. I will allow the following teacher to explain:

The P.E. teachers and the music teachers and these specialists that don't have anything to do with the regular curriculum, they're going to get that extra money without doing anything for it. They don't have to worry about test scores, they don't have to worry about writing skills, or anything like that. They just get a bonus . . . I just don't think it's right . . . How come they [specialists] can't sit down and have the kids write a summary about what they've learned in P.E.? How come they can't write a summary about things they've learned in music? The P.E. teacher pipes up and she says to me, "Well, I have about 5 minutes I could give toward that." Yeah, but you want four thousand dollars in your hot little hand this summer, don't you, honey? That's not fair! [with voice becoming increasingly louder] Here we are busting our fannies teaching composition skills and math skills, and all of this stuff so that we can meet these goals that we set, and here's the P.E. teacher . . . [shakes head and stops talking].

Participant Observation Teacher #1

When I asked this teacher how long she had felt this way, she responded that it was not until she started having discussions with her colleagues about money linked to test performance that the resentment toward the specialists started to build. In fact, she hastened to add, "I used to like the P.E. teacher."

Other study participants shared this teacher's anger and a rising sense of professional animosity toward teachers whom they once considered colleagues. Two teachers remarked, "But like, P.E., music, media, they shouldn't get [the money]. I'm just thinking if there is money for salaries, why don't they just give it to you?" (Focus Group Participant #4) "We're like, being pitted against each other. I feel like [another teacher] won't share ideas or stuff with me any more" (Focus Group Participant #1).

Money matters aside, participant teachers strongly expressed the sentiment that it is inherently unfair to demand an increase in test scores from year to year without taking into account the differences in students. Many echoed Evans (2001) comments that the standards movement and their accompanying tests are " . . . a one-size-fits-all approach that ignores the need to attend to individual differences and student interests" (p. 335) Demonstrating Evans' assertion, these teachers said:

When we have to make up those goals [specific goals related to raising test scores], we have to use our last year's test. Well, I'm sorry, my last year's class is nothing compared to this year!

Focus Group Participant #12

So you are basically comparing. If you had a group that was extremely high for some reason one year, and the next year you have a group that's not quite that high, well they have to perform high no matter what.

Focus Group Participant #3

Amrein and Berliner^[4] (2002) found that high-stakes tests result in numerous negative consequences on student achievement. In addition, other researchers have noted that standardized testing exerts negative effects on the academic achievement of poor and minority youth in particular. Seemingly, the overuse of assessments is another obstacle that blocks the path of "nonprivileged young people in our schools" (Apple and Beane, 1995). McNeil (as cited in Hursh, 2001) concluded: "Over the long term, standardization creates inequities, widening the gap between the quality of education for poor and minority youth and that of more privileged students" (p. 351). The teachers involved in my study recognized that this widening disparity between the privileged and non-privileged as a result of assessments is contradictory to sound education practices.

Overall the teachers in the study regarded the emphasis on test scores to have negative effects on student learning in general, as well as on their own practice, as the following teachers attest:

A few years ago it seemed like we could teach children. We learned things like thematic units, things that would make learning enjoyable and would be good for kids. It's not that way. I mean, you still draw on that to get everything in, but now our workshops aren't really geared towards that stuff. I don't think it's as fun for kids in school anymore either.

Focus Group Participant #4

I've always viewed testing as important, but yet it shouldn't be so emphasized because you have kids in your class that are not good test takers. Those poor third graders last year. We did a week of [state-mandated tests], 2 weeks of district tests, and then the Stanford test, and then the Writing Sample [a district-designed test]. So we had 5 weeks out of our spring that all we did was test. Some part of our day involved tests, and that's a burnout situation for the kids. They don't care. And then what does that accomplish? And then you've got really good students who don't do well on tests because they're not good test-takers . . . I don't think that [test scores] determine whether or not you're a good teacher, and whether or not they're a good student [sic].

Participant Observation Teacher #2

The emphasis placed on increasing test scores has even moved some participating teachers to consider retirement or a career change. One teacher explained, "For the first time in my career, I'm beginning not to like my job. I made more money in business, but I hated my job then . . . I'm sick of constantly looking over my shoulder" (Focus Group Participant #14).

Even though the teachers with whom I spoke generally disliked the current emphasis on testing, they were not as negative about the curriculum standards that they were required to follow. However, all of the teachers involved in the study acknowledged a difference between the state standards and standardized testing instruments. They regarded the standards as guidelines, not as threats to productive teaching and learning. In fact, in one school, the teachers indicated that their principal had afforded them opportunities to learn about the potential benefits of the state standards in a non-threatening atmosphere. These teachers were generally positive about the effects the standards were having on their teaching, and expressed an optimism about the direction the curriculum seemed to be taking. The following teacher from that school expressed her confidence in the standards as agents of positive change, believing that she had become more reflective in her teaching as a result of her school's emphasis on the standards:

We're not radically changing what we are teaching, but we're looking at what we are teaching and saying, "Are our students going to be able to demonstrate that they know that and are able to do it?" Or, "What do I need to tweak? What is it that I'm doing a little bit differently?"

Focus Group Participant #8

Although participant teachers suggested that assessments do not correlate to sound educational practices, they realized that the standards would probably be ignored without accompanying tests that measured the degree to which students were mastering them. After all, many classroom teachers urge students to attend to the material being taught with the caution, "You need to pay attention because there will be a test." Like students, participant teachers implied that they were more likely to pay attention to state and national standards if they knew they would be held accountable for the material being learned.

On the one hand, participating teachers were amenable to utilizing the standards as tools for lesson and unit planning. On the other hand, they were defensive of and offended by the threat that has been posed to their instructional autonomy by the standardized tests. This participant teacher summarized the mixed feelings that many teachers felt about the standards and accompanying tests:

I think they [standards] give you a starting point, but there's more to it than just the standards. I mean it all has to go with your school and your principal and your teachers and your team. You need accountability from all of them . . . Like you have five kids in your room and they can't read and they're fifth graders! Or maybe they're reading at the first grade level. Well, what happened in first, second, third, and fourth grades? What happened? Was it parents? Family life? Counseling problems? So they threw in the teacher and the test, like the test is going to make everything better. And it's not.

Focus Group Participant #10

One final thought about the teachers' reactions to the current testing initiatives remains to be explored. Teachers feel that only they can fully understand the inner workings of the classroom. They are offended when non-practitioners, such as legislators, impose their philosophies and methods on teachers. Study participants recognized that the pressure currently being applied to them is the result of legislative action. Two of the focus group teachers commented:

The legislators are coming up with these ideas about how to show improvement when they're not even real sure [how to measure improvement]. It doesn't seem to make sense. It's not logical. And the reasoning they are giving us is that we are teaching curriculum and not kids. But I always thought we taught kids. All children are individuals and they learn at different rates. I mean they [teacher-educators] tell you that from day one. And yet, now they [legislators] go back to the curriculum. The people making these policies aren't making any sense.

Focus Group Participant #4

I feel like it [mandates concerning tests] is a big arrow telling us to "go do that!" I'm concerned about this because they [legislators] don't always have the answer. We have the wrong people making decisions for schools. I feel that legislators who make decisions for educators and don't take input from us are wrong.

Focus Group Participant #8

Clearly, teachers take offense at the mandated tests being thrust upon them without their input. They acknowledge that they are changing their practices and general pedagogy in response to these directives. However, they fear that the tests are not in the best interests of students, and they denounce the effects the tests are having on their ability to maintain collegial school climates in which professionals can do their work productively.

Conclusion

Reforming the schools has never been considered an easy task. There is a multitude of political agendas and much public pressure to transform the schools in one way or another. The most prominent reform initiative in recent years is the emphasis on standardized tests and the creation/revision of academic standards. However, no matter what reform initiative may be proposed, schools will only change to the extent that the teachers in the schools are willing to transform their practice.

Despite the fact that without teacher acceptance and support any reform initiative is unlikely to occur, teacher voices have been effectively silent. Honoring the teachers' stories and their conceptualizations is reminiscent of the field of teacher research known as teacher lore (Shubert, 1992). Shubert (1992) further explained, "The term teacher lore designates a very broad array of work that enhances understanding of teachers' perspectives and how they develop" (p. 263). He also points out that there is a "lack of credibility given teachers in research on teachers and teaching. . . although an increasing amount of research now focuses on teachers, it usually is about them, rather than of and by them [emphasis in original]" (p. 264). My study is an interpretation of the stories of change that teachers feel the standards and tests have effected in their practice. Their stories drove my research, and their words were the focal points of my interpretations. Therefore, my study is research of teachers and by teachers. Through their stories I derived a portrait of change in their careers that I reported narratively rather than scientifically. Indeed, a narrative portrayal of these teachers' thoughts is essential because "teachers' knowledge in its own terms is ordered by story and can best be described in this way" (Elbaz, as cited in Carter, 1993, p. 7).

This study was designed to give heed to teachers' voices concerning the effects of standards and tests in their practice. Not only did I hear their voices, but I also learned that they have many valuable things to say about the standards and tests to anyone who is willing to listen.

Author

Elizabeth R. Hinde, Ph.D. is on the faculty of Arizona State University East Campus. She teaches elementary methods and theory classes in the Teacher Education Unit. In addition to her commitment to preparing young teachers for the profession and furthering the education of experienced educators at the elementary level, Dr. Hinde has done research and has a continuing interest in teachers' conceptualizations of change in their professional lives. This research includes all aspects that teachers conceptualize as having had an impact on their careers. She may be contacted via e-mail at Elizabeth.hinde@asu.edu.

End Notes

1. Templeton is a pseudonym for an urban district in the Southwestern United States.

2. Please see Appendix A for a more detailed sketch of each teacher.

3. All proper names are pseudonyms.

4. Amrein and Berliner define high-stakes in their study as "consequences that are attached to tests beyond the accountability measures that have been in place for years" (p. 5).

References

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Appendix A - Teacher Descriptions

Below are brief descriptions of participant teachers at the time I conducted the study.

Participant Observation Teacher #1 - Mary Jones: Mary has taught for 20 years in three different Templeton schools. She taught first, second, third, and fifth grades. At the time of the study, she was teaching sixth grade. She is married with children.

Participant Observation Teacher #2 - Carol Smith: Carol has taught for 15 years in three different Templeton schools. She taught third and fourth grades prior to our interviews. At the time of the study, she was teaching eighth grade science in a Templeton junior high school. She is married with children.

Focus Group Participant #1 - This teacher has taught for 16 years at four different Templeton schools. She taught third and fourth grades, and, at the time of the study, she was teaching sixth grade. She is married with children.

Focus Group Participant #2 - This teacher has taught for 17 years. Ten of those years were in another school district. She taught for 7 years prior to this study in three different Templeton schools. In her career, she taught kindergarten and first grade, and, at the time of the study, she was teaching early kindergarten. She is married with children.

Focus Group Participant #3 - This teacher has taught for 12 years in two different Templeton schools. She taught kindergarten, first, and fourth grades, and, at the time of the study, third grade. She is married with children.

Focus Group Participant #4 - This teacher has taught for 21 years. Her first 6 years of teaching were in schools in two different states. She taught for15 years prior to the study at four different Templeton schools. In her career, she taught kindergarten through twelfth grades. She was teaching sixth grade at the time of the study. She is married with children.

Focus Group Participant #5 - This teacher has taught for 15 years. She was an educational consultant for gifted and talented programs for 2 years in another state. She taught for 13 years prior to the study in two different Templeton schools. In her career, she has taught first grade and gifted/talented for second through sixth grades. She was teaching special education in a self-contained classroom at the time of the study. She is married with children.

Focus Group Participant #6 - This teacher has taught for 20 years in sixth grade at the same Templeton school. She is unmarried with no children.

Focus Group Participant #7 - This teacher has taught for 18 years. She taught for 3 years in another school district prior to the study and 15 years in one Templeton school. She taught special education and fourth grade, and was teaching fifth grade when interviewed for this study. She is married with children.

Focus Group Participant #8 - This teacher has taught for 28 years. She started her career teaching in another state, and then taught in five different Templeton schools. She taught special education, kindergarten, developmental kindergarten, fourth grade, and, at the time of the study, sixth grade. She is married with children.

Focus Group Participant #9 - This teacher has taught for 35 years. She spent 13 years teaching in another state and for 22 years in Templeton schools. She taught kindergarten, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grades, as well as gifted/talented. She was semi-retired, working half time as a reading/math resource teacher at the time of the study. She is married with children.

Focus Group Participant #10 - This teacher has taught for 18 years. She spent her first year in another school district and 17 years in three different Templeton schools. She taught in a special education program serving kindergarten through sixth graders. She also taught second, fourth, fifth, eighth, and ninth grades. At the time of the study, she was teaching fifth grade. She is unmarried with no children.

Focus Group Participant #11 - This teacher has taught for 22 years. She spent her first five years teaching in two other states and the other 17 years in two different Templeton schools. She taught first and fourth grades and was a math/reading specialist serving grades 1 through 6. She was teaching third grade at the time of the study. She is married with a child.

Focus Group Participant #12 - This teacher has taught for 19 years. She spent her first 7 years teaching in another state and the remaining 12 years teaching in four different Templeton schools. She taught kindergarten, first, third, seventh, and eighth grades, and, at the time of the study, second grade. She is unmarried with a child.

Focus Group Participant #13 - This teacher has taught for 24 years. She spent the first 8 years of her career in another state and the 16 remaining years teaching in five different Templeton schools. She taught a second/third-combination class, fourth, and sixth grades. At the time of the study, she was teaching fifth grade. She is married with children.

Focus Group Participant #14 - This teacher has taught for 13 years in two different Templeton schools. He taught fourth grade, and was teaching fifth grade at the time of the study. He is married with children.