Achievement tests generate mixed feelings
YOUNGSTOWN — Phyllis Signor has mixed feelings about the effectiveness of state-mandated achievement testing of schoolchildren.
“I think it’s important that they do well,” said the greeter at Paul C. Bunn Elementary School. But she doesn’t think the tests always give an accurate measure of a child’s ability to learn.
“It’s a necessary evil, I suppose,” said her husband, the Rev. Scott Signor, associate pastor at New Beginning Assembly of God Church on Market Street. “We have to know where we’re standing.”
Ohio’s achievement tests will be administered to children in grades three through eight the week of April 30 and the Signors’ son, Nate, a fourth-grader at Bunn, will be taking reading, math and writing tests over a three-day period.
“There’s such a stress on those tests,” Phyllis Signor said. “Kids all have strengths. We need to find out what the strength is and draw it out of them.”
Nate, for example, scored exceptionally well in the math test as a third-grader but just missed the proficiency mark by one point in reading.
The school has done a good job of helping pupils to prepare for the test, and the family works with Nate at home as well, Mrs. Signor said, but reading and writing aren’t his strong points, although he did receive an honorable mention in the school’s KidScripts writing competition at school.
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