Time tested

Teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District are resisting its periodic standardized tests, a reaction as understandable as it is unacceptable. Testing reduces the time available for instruction and for moments of fun and rest that also contribute to a successful school day. And teachers feel that the inventiveness they bring to the classroom is crushed under the weighty list of material to be covered in time for the annual state tests in the spring.

Yet the “periodic assessments,” as district administrators call them, are a useful way for parents, administrators and above all teachers to keep students on track throughout the school year. As conscientiously as teachers educate their students and measure their progress, the district’s scores show that far too many children are not adequately prepared for courses such as algebra, the keystone of higher math and college readiness. That preparation begins years before students ever see a variable in an equation. Having students take the state’s STAR tests at the end of the year, score poorly, then move on to the next grade unready is no substitute for making sure they’re learning the right skills in the right grades through tests administered a few times a year. If a test showed that most of a fourth-grade class couldn’t convert fractions to decimals, even though the teacher had covered that material, wouldn’t the teacher want to know as soon as possible? In fact, the results should be sent to parents too and made part of the new district report cards on each school.

L.A. Unified must bear some of the blame for the recalcitrance from United Teachers Los Angeles. Starting with then-Supt. Roy Romer, who launched the district exams, the assessments were imposed from on high, using mostly outside testing and curriculum companies. The district would have more meaningful exams -- and more teacher cooperation -- by inviting teachers to help develop them, or at least to comment on and make changes in the exams composed by others. The seemingly inevitable glitches, such as testing results returned late or not at all, haven’t helped.

A significant number of teachers don’t even bother giving the assessments -- an unthinkable breach of district policy -- and now, after district managers began demanding higher compliance, the union is calling on teachers to boycott them altogether. The union is in fractious contract negotiations, but the exams are more than worth their price tag of a few million dollars. The threat is a test not just for Supt. Ramon C. Cortines but for the heavily pro-union school board. Teachers who fail to carry out such a basic duty as a required exam should be written up. Student progress is simply not negotiable.