The PLAN Test Dilemma

The other day I had a meeting with one of the assistant principals at our school. This person was concerned because of the results on the recent PLAN test our sophomores had taken. Our goal is that at least 70% of our students answer each question on the exam correctly. I don’t know how it was decided that 70% was the number to shoot for. There were 11 questions on the exam that seemed to be a problem. Of those, 5 had rates of 64-69% correct, only two were below 50%--the lowest being 26%. Seven of the eleven questions were in the “Earth Science/Physics” passages. We do not offer Earth Science, and sophomores have not taken Physics. The assistant principal seemed to think that the problem was the content we were teaching.
The PLAN Science test covers topics in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Earth/Space Science. By their sophomore year students have taken Biology and a quarter of Chemistry. There is no way to cover all possible topics that could be on the exam in five quarters, but the PLAN test is not a content based test—it is a reading comprehension test. Students do poorly on some of the questions, not because they haven’t covered the content in class, but because they haven’t learned how to acquire information by reading.
My solution to the problem was to help students to acquire this essential skill, rather than to force them to take Earth Science.
My feelings are that some required material in every chapter should be learned by reading only—independent study. Students must be held accountable for this material, and teachers must fight the urge to lecture on it. Classroom tests could routinely contain passages from outside sources that introduced new material related to the main ideas of the unit. Test questions should be asked about this material, requiring students to read and understand it. Students should not be allowed to get their “A” by regurgitating what they are spoon feed.
Some of the best activities that help students acquire these skills were part of the BSCS Biology curriculum of the 1970’s. There were several “dry labs” in the text that challenged the students to read with comprehension and develop an understanding of a concept. The experiment about why oat stem tips bend toward the light is a classic, as well as the peppered moth and natural selection activity, and bacteria that cause pneumonia experiment. Every science student should be required to complete each of these activities sometime during their schooling.
The students will complain. “This is unfair; he/she never taught that ” But please understand, what is really unfair is to cheat students out of the opportunity to master these skills because they are difficult to acquire.