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Carol Capps' 7th graders bound into her
pre-algebra class after a morning of sweating
over standardized test booklets, knowing their
performance will help determine the financial
future of their school.
Capps asks them how they did,
and responses are mostly negative, but in the
giggly way of teenagers with bigger things on
their minds.
Several mention a question on the reading portion
of the test about a Zamboni, the machine used
to groom ice rinks. No one in the class has heard
of a Zamboni, and Capps explains their use.
The scene in Rocky Boy on the Rocky
Boy's Reservation encapsulates the conflict
about the kind of citizens public schools are
trying to create.
Debate over testing, and specifically, the federal
No
Child Left Behind policy that requires it,
is fierce on Rocky Boy's Reservation, a
120,000-acre reserve in northcentral Montana that
is home to Chippewa and Cree.
Should students know what a Zamboni is so they
can perform well on a federal test, or is it more
important that schools teach them who they are
and how to make life decisions?
In Montana,
the 1972 Constitution pledges that the state is
committed, through education, to the preservation
of Indians' cultural identity. Those were
little more than lofty words until the 2005 Legislature
backed them with a $550,000 appropriation. Now,
off-reservation schools are adding it to the curriculum
because it's the law. At Rocky Boy schools,
it's in the core of the curriculum because
it's their life.
Federal No Child Left Behind policy says that
knowledge is measurable by standardized tests.
Critics say those tests reflect more about children's
household income and their parents' level
of education than about how much a student knows.
Bruce Patera, a Caucasian junior and senior high
school librarian at Rocky Boy, says it's
obvious that standardized tests are geared toward
white middle class America.
"Look at the incoming vocabulary of a native
student compared with a white," he says.
"They come in with a different cultural
viewpoint than other students. If you've
never seen a skyscraper, how do you know what
adjective you should use to describe it, or industrial
pollution for that matter? I don't think
the tests are meaningful."
Educators are divided between those who like No
Child Left Behind for its scientific methods and
data-driven standards. Others feel standardized
tests are a one-size-fits-all Band-Aid for an
education system reflective of America's
social problems and economic inequalities. That,
critics contend, explains why minority students,
including Native Americans, are consistently out-performed
by their white peers.
In Montana, American Indians are three times more
likely to drop out of high school than white students.
On tests that determine whether a school meets
the No Child Left Behind requirements, results
for the 2003-2004 school year show 38.4 percent
of all Indian students made or exceeded proficiency
levels for reading. In math, 27.6 percent of students
met the standards. Grades 4, 8 and 10 were tested.
Some of Rocky Boy's schools fared worse.
At the elementary level, 33.3 percent of Indian
students met or exceeded reading proficiency standards.
Just 4.8 percent of students achieved proficiency
or higher on the math portion of the test.
At the junior high, 28.2 percent of students were
at or above proficient in reading, with 35.9 percent
in math. High school students at the reservation
scored less well, with 15.2 percent meeting or
exceeding proficient scores, and just 3 percent
meeting proficiency or higher in math.
Bobby
Ann Starnes says she and Rocky Boy's teachers
know the tests don't reflect the bright, fun children
they know and love.
Starnes, who earned a doctorate from Harvard and briefly taught elementary school at Rocky Boy's, says the tests are culturally irrelevant for American Indian students, and they don't use learning styles proven to work best for them. She recently started a nonprofit organization in Helena to help all Montana teachers teach Indian education in keeping with state law.
"This is something the research is very clear
on," says Starnes. "Test scores may go up as a
result of [No Child Left Behind] programs, but
in the long run, no child will sustain any gains.
Native American learning styles are different.
Research shows that they grasp the big picture
first and then get smaller."
"This is something the research
is very clear on. Test
scores may go up as a result of [No Child Left
Behind] programs, but in the long run, no child
will sustain any gains. Native American learning
styles are different. Research shows that they
grasp the big picture first and then get smaller."
– Bobby Ann Starnes,
former teacher,
founder of Full Circle Curriculum and Materials
But the research backed by the
Bush Administration is what school administrators
must work with now. The pressure is on for administrators,
especially at reservation schools, where all school
funding comes from the state and federal governments,
often in the form of performance-based grants,
as opposed to property taxes and bonds.
Rocky Boy's staff makes sure students and parents
know the importance of these tests. More than
funding is at stake.
"We don't want our kids to be considered failures,"
explains Voyd St. Pierre, principal of the junior
and senior high schools, who grew up on the reservation.
"It's unfortunate we were judged on just one test
per year. Anybody could have a bad day or week.
Mom comes home on a drunken binge and brings the
party with her, or the welfare check doesn't come
in till the first and all a kid has to eat are
the three chicken strips from school lunch that
day.
"Nobody likes being called a failure, and we'll
do whatever we can to not get that label."
Starnes says she can't think of a worse time to
be a teacher in America. She says teaching to
a test kills teachers' enthusiasm and creativity,
crucial traits for teaching Indian education in
a meaningful way.
"NCLB guts everything that is exciting about teaching
and learning and turns it into a robotic activity,"
Starnes says.
Heather Gaston, a high school English teacher
in her sixth year at Rocky Boy, agrees that the
more creative teachers are the more frustrated
they become.
"When you are just coming out of school, where
you learned about all of these new ways of facilitating
classes and learning-that model doesn't
fit with the standardized tests," she says. "I
was a product of a Texas high school where they
taught to the test. It's the whole ‘trying
to run education as a business' idea. It's not
a business. There are a lot of unquantifiable
variables. There is a real disconnect between
the policymakers and the teachers."
Linda Engebretson teaches high school biology
and geometry and is known for her unit on plants
traditionally used by Indians. After three weeks
of study, she and Rick Sun Child, the high school
Cree studies teacher, take the students to gather
plants the "proper" way. Sun Child offers tobacco
to the Great Spirit and they pray. The kids love
it, she says. But there's no test standard for
that kind of learning. And getting test scores
up gets priority.
Gaston says her students get a lot of "test anxiety."
"They have trouble seeing meaning in the tests,"
she says. "You don't have a lot of buy-in, so
they don't do their best. I certainly don't think
the tests reflect our students' abilities."
Yet some Indian teachers and administrators bristle
at Starnes' suggestion that there is an American
Indian learning style that prevents test-taking
success.
Principal St. Pierre blames a decline in the value
of education rather than a certain learning style.
"We have a lot of young parents on the reservation,
and lots of kids who don't have mom and dad at
home — they may have mom, or dad, or grandma,
or auntie," St. Pierre says. "No one is at home
telling them education is important. Schools are
doing their best, but parents and community are
the key."
Social problems do beset the community.
Capps, who has taught 18 years in Rocky Boy schools,
lives with her husband in teacher housing across
from the school. They see daily what their students
contend with.
"We had a little boy ring our doorbell at 3 a.m.
needing a ride home," Capps says. "That happens,
I wouldn't say often, but it happens. The kids
stay for a basketball game till 10 p.m. and it's
10 below out; they need a ride home."
She says she knows parents love their children
and want to keep them safe, but that doesn't always
translate into action.
All told, St. Pierre, who will take over as district
superintendent in July, thinks No Child Left Behind
has been good for Rocky Boy.
"No Child Left Behind makes everybody accountable
and, finally, everyone uses the same measurement
of success," says St. Pierre.
"It levels the playing field."
He says as superintendent the law will be "at
the top of my list."
By 2014, all schools are supposed to be at least
proficient. And "all" includes "special education
kids, minority kids, free and reduced lunch kids,"
he notes.
St. Pierre admits that goal is "not realistic."
But for his students, St. Pierre rejects the notion
that teaching to the test changes Indian students
or diminishes their culture.
"Culture's important, yes, but they
still need basic skills," he says.
He agrees that some standardized tests, like social
studies exams, can be biased against Indians on
reservations when 90 percent won't know what a
subway is, for example.
"Till five years ago, there were no sidewalks
even on the reservations," St. Pierre says. "Maybe
it would help to have different people writing
the tests."
Elementary Principal Josephine Corcoran says No
Child Left Behind has benefited the school. She
doesn't buy that there is a culturally determined
Indian learning style.
"Culture has very little to do with it," Corcoran
says. "Culture is a process. Our community supports
culture." Social issues and poverty come into
play, she notes, but "schools need to be more
focused."
Corcoran, like St. Pierre, is a realist: There's
no room or time to debate whether the tests are
culturally relevant. The students must pass the
tests so the schools get funding.
"This is the technological age," she says. They
need to learn about society as a whole, where
they fit in as Indians and as individuals."
Shirley Ingram is a character. On the March day
visitors come to her 7th grade class, it's her
birthday and, to help her students unwind from
a day of tests, she has them make her construction-paper
birthday cards. The messages inside need not be
true, she tells them jokingly; the more kissing
up the better.
Speaking after class about No Child Left Behind,
Ingram doesn't hesitate to tell what she says
is the truth.
"I think it's really, really stupid we're basing
our education system on this," says Ingram, a
teacher for 24 years. "I bet the test companies
are as happy as pigs in … about it though."
Ingram says she's hard-pressed to think of a single
thing No Child Left Behind has done to help education.
"Culture has very little
to do with it. Culture
is a process. Our community supports culture."
Social issues and poverty come into play ... but
"schools need to be more focused."
– Josephine Corcoran,
elementary school principal,
Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation
Because of the low scores in vocabulary, she says, every third Thursday of the month is dedicated to test prep —giving students tips on eliminating the wrong answers, learning vocabulary, and taking practice tests.
Ingram says this culture, while inevitable because of how reservation schools are funded, is bad for students and teachers.
"I think it makes teachers into cheaters," she says. "I saw on the news where teachers' wages are based on their classroom's test results. You are alone with these tests; the temptation is there. I'm not even saying that's wrong. But if everyone starts getting the right answers, they'll just make the tests harder."
Testing is sometimes hard to monitor.
A student in another classroom that day had his test booklet open while the class was still reviewing before the test time had begun. Another student noticed and told the teacher, who instructed him to close the book. He didn't, and she said nothing more.
Nearly all teachers at Rocky Boy do support the Indian Education for All initiative, which isn't enforced through testing.
Ingram says she incorporates it into daily lessons.
"We're doing graphs and charts, and I relate that to their own life, whether it's the buffalo population or the population of different tribes over time," she says. "It's true if they feel they have ownership for it, they'll do better."
She believes the policy, because it applies to all Montana students, will help dispel continuing "myths and prejudices" about Indians.
Her class gets a big kick out of it when she talks about how whites were less hygienic then the Indians they called "dirty savages," since it was the whites who believed if they kept dirt on their skin it would protect them from germs, she says.
"I tell my class that the Indians could smell the whites coming for miles and they laugh and laugh," she says wryly.
Ingram tries to instill tribal values in her students so they value the land of their ancestors and feel proud to be Indian.
"A lot of Native Americans have lost their pride and self-respect," Ingram says. "Some have been living on welfare so long, and it's hard to maintain that. There's no reason to get up in the morning. I think teaching about the pride their ancestors had will help."
For Ingram, the point of school is not to teach student how to test, but rather to be able to support themselves and their families, to make good choices by having good reasoning skills and to be prepared to live in the world.
"How many adults have jobs where they work in complete isolation?" Ingram asks. "Our jobs require us to have social skills so you can work side by side with others. Now kids spend 13 years on an island by themselves doing tests and then we expect them to work with others outside on the playground and in the real world. I think it is rather ironic." |
