Testing can be taxing

• High school sophomores must pass the Utah Basic Skills Competency Test, required for a full diploma, and can retake its reading, writing and math sections up to five times through their senior year. Time: 4.5 hours.

• Immigrants take the Utah Academic Language Proficiency Assessment to gauge their English language progress. Time: 90 minutes.

The tests are expensive, and some change each time they're given, said Judy Park, state director of assessment and accountability.

The state education office this year budgeted $15.5 million for testing, some of it in one-time money. It will need another $3.5 million from the Legislature to maintain that spending level, State Associate Superintendent Patrick Ogden said.

"We're really facing a deficit," Ogden said. "If we don't get that $3.5 million, we're really going to have to take a serious look at what we do in assessment, what we can do and how we're going to pay for this work."

That begs the question: Is the money well spent?

Depends on whom you ask.

"When you take time testing, you take time out of learning," board member Randall Mackey said. "The 2 percent may be a little misleading . . . because it really disrupts the entire school."

Highland junior Ellen Larson says some of the tests aren't "that bad."

"But overall they're pretty long, they're tiring, it seems like it drags down the rest of your day. I think it affects the rest of your classes," she said.

Highland junior Marcus Otoa has noticed an increase in testing this school year. "But I think that if you're well prepared for it, it really shouldn't bother you in your education."

Board member Tim Beagley said teachers spend a week or two helping students brush up for year-end CRTs. Still, he noted time spent on tests "doesn't appear to be excessive."

Park says good testing often translates into good instruction, because teachers can see what students are understanding and what they're not, and adjust their teaching accordingly.

Salt Lake City testing supervisor Joan Reynolds agrees. "I don't view them as a loss of time in the classroom; I view them as instruction."

Reynolds is referring to district-required tests in reading and writing, which invite students to conduct research, complete rough drafts and bounce ideas off each other before turning in a finished product.

"My perception is, there's too much multiple-choice testing . . . There's not enough assessment going on," Reynolds said. "I don't think 19 hours of a junior's life is killed in taking an assessment . . . I believe good assessment is helpful to instruction.

"I'd like to see time spent in assemblies."

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E-mail: jtcook@desnews.com