Teacher of the year: MCA test scores are not always reflective of student‘s knowledge

[MUSIC PLAYING] NINA MOINI: It's Minnesota Now. I'm Nina Moini in for Cathy Wurzer. Thanks for being with us this afternoon. Our top story is the Minnesota Department of Education released test scores this morning for K through 12 students across the state.

The data shows scores have still not rebounded from a slump that began during the pandemic. About half of Minnesota public school students are proficient in reading and about 45% are proficient in math. Numbers that have not changed since last year.

These standardized tests are known as the MCAs or Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments. Third through eighth graders typically take them every year, and high school students take one reading and one math test during their 10th or 11th grade years. So joining me now for perspective from the classroom is Washburn High School English Teacher and 2024 Teacher of the Year, Tracy Byrd. Tracy, thank you so much for being with us.

TRACY BYRD: Thanks for having me. Nina.

NINA MOINI: You know, Tracy, I appreciate your profession so much, and I know most people obviously do. As an educator, how does it make you feel to hear these really striking numbers-- only 50% of students statewide to be proficient in reading and math. How much does that concern you?

TRACY BYRD: Well, the good news with that is it lets us know that there's still work to be done. I mean, if we had everything solved, then, what problems would we have?

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and I mean, you teach ninth grade English. So you're kind of seeing students in between their eighth grade and 10th grade tests that they would take. As you begin a new school year, a new semester, are these scores useful to you in practice? Do they inform your teaching?

TRACY BYRD: Not really. The one thing is if students were to opt out of the test, then that is a zero for that student or for that school. So let's say inside of a school, 45 students opt out. Well, that's 45 zeros going towards that school. And then when you factor that number in with the students that took the test, you could see how you would have low scores.

Then you compound that with some of the students know that they're more grade motivated. And so when you tell them that this test that they're going to take doesn't have an impact on their grade for that class or if they're going to graduate from high school-- you know, you're going to have some students that they see a test in front of them and they're just like, I'm going to do my best. But we have some that that's not how they're wired. And again, so we have zeros for those who opt out. We have some that are grade motivated and know that this is not for their grade-- two components of why that could be a lower score.

NINA MOINI: Sure. And to your point, there are some caveats to this that the Department of Education has also shared, that Minnesota students are scoring higher than students in other states, graduation rates have improved, and these tests are low stakes, like you mentioned, for students who can opt out. So how well do the scores represent to you how students are doing academically. Is this a test that you would teach for? It sounds like you're not putting a lot of stake in it.

TRACY BYRD: Well, we don't even see the test. So I have no idea if what I'm teaching is even helping the student for the test. If it's matching up with what they're going to be tested on. I know my students in my ninth grade classroom, these test scores, it's not a lack of effort because my students work hard day in, day out. So it's not dismissing the test score.

NINA MOINI: Sure.

TRACY BYRD: It's just saying there's got to be something else with that.

NINA MOINI: And everyone's an individual. Obviously, every student. But this data does suggest really in the trend that it's been difficult to recover from the learning losses that happened especially early in the pandemic. Are you seeing in your classroom some of the after effects of this and why the scores have still not gone back to where they were pre-pandemic?

TRACY BYRD: Yeah, well, this is a group of students that when the pandemic was going on, I mean, they were literally learning how to do secondary school. So they were trying to figure out not so much some of the skills, but how to do school, how to show up on time, how to come prepared, how to comprehend text, how to just have dialogue inside of a classroom. And that was taken away from them. And so now we're on this treadmill of which should we try to bring back the fastest first?

Should we try to bring back academics because everybody wants to see a higher test score or should we teach them how to be humans with one another and have civil discourse? So there's multiple problems to attack Which one, how do we prioritize them?

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and you're wanting to take a holistic approach, it sounds like.

TRACY BYRD: Exactly.

NINA MOINI: And I wonder-- you know, I was reading about you and you have an interesting background that you had told people you never thought that you would ever be a teacher and you didn't do all that great in school. So I wondered how you talk with students who maybe are not feeling great about whether it be this score or other scores and how you sort of inspire people who might have fallen behind to kind of keep going?

TRACY BYRD: Well, right, I never saw myself as a teacher. And I tell them before we take any test, this is one data point. This is one data point on a long list of classes, exams. I have you in ninth grade. You're going to take multiple tests in 10th grade, multiple tests in the 11th grade. This is one data point. This does not make you or break you.

It just shows you it's real life data of what do we need to work on? That's the whole thing, how do we get better? Because we're not the best versions of ourselves yet.

NINA MOINI: And at Washburn, where you're teaching, reading and math and science scores have declined for the last few years. There have been issues with absenteeism. How does this affect morale among teachers like yourself and educators?

TRACY BYRD: You know, I can only control what I can control. And those are the students that come into the classroom. I know life happens for everyone differently. So what ever is keeping the student out of my classroom, that's something that's on their walk. It's their journey. They have to figure that out.

I'm going to have 24, 27, 31 sets of eyes looking at me, waiting for today's lesson. And that's where my focus is.

NINA MOINI: And this is an election year. I don't know if everyone's heard.

TRACY BYRD: What?

NINA MOINI: And you know, test scores can and have been big talking points for politicians on both sides of the aisle. From your standpoint and vantage point as an educator, and evidently the best, what do you see, what do you think it would take to reverse this trend and see proficiency bouncing back?

TRACY BYRD: Individual tests. I mean, it's difficult to know what everyone knows by giving them a test that may or may not be where they are. I mean, if I'm trying to find out what 1,000 people know, I don't know 700 people who live in a certain part of town or a certain area what they're going through. There are people that are coming into the country. And so when we hand them a test, we have to figure that they're probably not going to do as well as someone who's lived here their whole lives. But yet, we're going to take that broad brush and say this school, this area, this district is either failing or not based on the students that are in that school.

I think we have to assess individual students individually to see what they know and what they don't know.

NINA MOINI: Sure. So it's an imperfect metric, but one of the only ones it seems they have on that kind of a larger scale. How can schools individually, to your point, identify students that are struggling with reading and then get them the support that they need. What does that look like for you?

TRACY BYRD: It looks early on. By the time they reach me in ninth grade, my licensure is English language arts. So it doesn't have a reading component to it. It says they already have these skills in their bag before they get to me. So it's how do we reimagine education?

Like, we had this opportunity right after COVID to--

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--it just isn't producing what we wanted to produce. We keep saying that the system is broken, but it's not broken. It's producing what it's designed to produce. So it's not broken. But if we want to change it, we had an opportunity to do it and now it's like we're falling back into what works.

Because, I mean, I just feel like there's not enough strength to say let's try something new because it's going to be hard.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, and we lost you for just a moment. But I hear what you're saying, Tracy, about maybe taking some out-of-the-box approaches. And as you enter into the new school year, I just want to wish you and your students and your school all the best. And thank you so much for coming on and discussing this with us.

TRACY BYRD: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: Tracy Byrd is an English teacher at Washburn High School in Minneapolis and the 2024 Minnesota Teacher of the Year.