Rewarding Success on Standardized Tests When the young son of a parent in California came home with a medal for his success on last year's standardized tests, she wrote asking for advice on how to respond - not to his test-taking ability, but to the celebration of that ability in front of his peers. The school awarded "gold" medals for advanced achievement in language arts and/or math, and "silver" to children whose score was "proficient." "We figured out pretty quickly that the kids who were getting certificates weren't the smart ones," her son said. How, the parent asked me, can I talk to my son about what these tests really mean when the school is sending one message, and I'm sending another? Success on standardized tests is great, and can lead to success in other areas. But it's far from the only way to be smart or successful, as Camille suggested to parents in California to remind their children. I think the best thing for the parent to do would be to note that everybody is good at different things. Perhaps those not getting medals for their test grades were getting medals for sports or music, or maybe they're a star baker and aren't getting official awards at all. I guess the point is to stress that while one should always be proud of any achievement (academic or otherwise), an award (or lack thereof) tells you very little about the person as a whole. Most readers, though, went straight to the core of the issue: should the school have publicly recognized these students in the first place? As benslow put it, "Come on. Didn't you know whom the "smart kids" and "academically challenged kids" were when you were in school? No one needs to present medals -- kids have already figured out this hierarchy. Readers who objected to the medals worried about how the children who didn't get gold would use the overt ranking to place themselves, mentally, in that hierarchy. These medals rarely reward real effort, argues Susan: Many of the kids thus rewarded are kids who breeze through school with a moderate amount of effort (like my son and his mom), like being present and completing the required work, but not really putting out. Then there are the ones, like my daughter, who work so much harder just in order to pass classes, and will likely not ever be even the sneered-at "proficient" on such measures. Readers who supported the medals often pointed to public recognition of success on the Presidential Fitness Test, and asked why a school shouldn't recognize this form of success as well. Although many questioned the no-doubt-well-meaning inclusiveness of the ceremony. "As long as schools still have pep rallies -- taking time out of the school day to honor participants in sports -- students who excel at academics should be honored as well," said Linda. A popular opinion piece in The Times, Young, Gifted and Neglected, reflected a similar sentiment, arguing that gifted and talented children, who once were seen as getting all of a school's best efforts, now get little recognition or opportunity in public schools. But rewarding only the top performers might be more appropriate than neatly sorting the remaining students into "kids who did OK" versus "kids who bubbled in the Van Halen logo" (as I remember a student sitting next to me doing on his standardized test one year). Ultimately, though, it took a school employee, Mary Newman, to get to the heart of why the school might offer the medals, and it had little to do with student success at all. The tests are used to evaluate the school for NCLB standards, so of course we have a vested interest in the results. However, the students are not affected by their scores, so only the intrinsically motivated will try hard. Those who aren't will often randomly bubble in answers or have their parents opt them out. This skews the school's performance score. So, we began offering recognition to high performers and most improved. Some campus privileges require Proficient or above on Math and Language Arts. Students can receive gift cards (donated, no tax $$ used for this) in varying amounts. These are awarded at an assembly at the beginning of the next school year, so students have something to aspire to. Since we began this, the school's overall performance has increased. Do we like meeting the NCLB goals? Do we like resorting to bribery to get kids to try hard? If Ms. Newman is right, the medals aren't to recognize academic achievement (that would be the honor roll, or a ceremony recognizing students who demonstrate work, progress and ability in math, English, science or the like). The medals are offered in the hope of motivating the students to represent their school well, because without demonstrating success on these tests, the school is unlikely to be able to promote real academics (as opposed to test-taking skills) at all. That's an entirely different kind of quandary.