i-Ready diagnostic testing continues, students share their concerns

Students and staff share opposing perspectives on the i-Ready diagnostic

Staff Writer

After the ice-breakers, admin presentations, and syllabus introductions have been rolled out, students can expect one last thing on the routine back-to-school agenda: diagnostic testing. Students dedicate a lot of time to these tests over their high school career, taking the i-Ready diagnostic twice each year. This raises the question of whether they are really worth it.

“My friends and I don’t take benchmark testing that seriously, partially because it feels like a waste of time,” said Sage Gebrekidan, a junior in AP Lang. She said, “Although teachers probably factor it a little into classes, from a student perspective, it just feels useless.”

On the other hand, Mrs. Smith, American’s English Department chair who teaches AP Lang and ELD 3, provided insight on how she uses her student’s scores. “For the majority of students at the 11 AP level, the diagnostic is intended to confirm that they will be able to handle the heavy reading load in the course. For students who are below level, it is an opportunity for us to make sure that during FLEX, we are providing opportunities to strengthen that reading comprehension.” She added, “For my ELD students, the diagnostic results allow me to create reading groups in class, to have both homogeneous groups where students are reading at similar levels, and mixed reading groups where [there is] a stronger reader and potentially a struggling reader who can help to balance any reading activities.”

Another of Gebrekidan’s main concerns was the repetitive nature of the test. She said, “Most of the readings I get are the same every year, which is kind of pointless, because it makes it boring, and it’s already something I don’t want to be doing.”

Mrs. Martin, English 9H and AP Lit teacher, also echoed this sentiment. “You’re going to lose student engagement if they have seen the same material again and again.That’s just a part of good teaching. You don’t just keep drilling the same thing. If we want accurate scores, and we want it to be a more authentic assessment, I think we have to vary the questions and passages.” she said.

“The other deficiency that frustrates many students is that the test has an ideal speed at which it thinks they should be reading,” added Mrs. Smith. “So those of us who are more fluent readers, who read and comprehend more quickly, end up being punished by being forced to slow down and take ‘brain breaks’ as we’re reading, because the computer model doesn’t think that we’re taking the test seriously,” she said.

“There is also the fact that in English classes, we have to do admin presentations every year and counselor presentations at the freshman level. So English teachers lose two block days, like a week of instruction, to this mandatory stuff. The i-Ready is just another thing that we have to do when we should be laying the foundations for our course,” Mrs. Martin said.

Even with its flaws, Mrs. Smith detailed another purpose that the i-Ready serves to students, particularly to her English learners. “The test is used as a reclassification determination for them,” she said. “If they have passed [the ELPAC state test] in the spring and if they are scoring grade level on the district measure for the benchmark, they move out of the EL designation and are considered, reclassified fluent English proficient, or RFEP.”

Even with certain benefits, many which could be true of different forms of diagnostic testing, the flaws that students and staff have pointed out may warrant the district to consider other platforms to test student abilities in the beginning of the year.

Sage Gebrekidan (11) finishes her i-Ready diagnostic test in Ms. Wilkinson’s FLEX because she was not present in class when it was originally administered. (PC: Tegbir Kaur (11))