DEVELOPING NATIONAL ASSESSMENTS
RMI Parents Provide Important Input

By Juanita Rilometo

“Teacher, can you please help me spell ‘name’?” asked a brave 1st grader who had been biting on his pencil and struggling to complete a trial test item that required him to “draw a picture and describe it
in 3-or-more-word sentences.”

A simple question, but one that has lots of implications for us: the teachers, parents, and mentors working to develop curriculum standards and items for the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) National Standards-Based Assessment.

Am I helping my students meet the standards? Do I have any say in what my child is learning at school? How can I help my child learn what is expected? How am I supporting the teachers so they can help students reach the standards expected of them at the end of certain grade levels? Do I set clear directions when developing assessment questions? How do I make connections with those who are most concerned about their children, the parents?

These are just a few questions that ran through my mind during and after administering a trial standardsbased assessment in one of the isolated schools in RMI. In these small schools, any “outside” test, even just a trial, is a big event that causes stress and anxiety. Students are too wellmannered
and respectful to speak up on their own, especially to a stranger. Having a very brave child overcome
such restrictions during the test started me thinking about the work that has been going on in the central
office and how it affects the students, teachers, and parents in school communities.

For the last several years, under the guidance of Dr. Kathleen Busick, a former PREL Program Specialist, the curriculum specialists/mentors at the RMI Ministry of Education have been developing standards, grade cluster benchmarks, and grade-by-grade expectations for grade 1-8 schools in all subject areas. During the process, teachers and principals have been periodically called in to review and give their input on ongoing work. Upon completion, a series of school-based summer workshops were conducted for all principals and teachers onsite at the schools and in Majuro.

As the phase of standards development and training came to completion, we turned our attention to assessment both of and for learning. Assessment of learning will be administered in grades 3, 6, and 8 through National Standardized Exams based on the grade cluster benchmarks. The curriculum specialists/mentors started developing test instruments and items to help teachers in their assessment for learning – a different process. This involves using test data to help shape classroom instruction (see “Assessing for Learning,” pages 9-10). During the development process, we would take the assessments we had developed and try them out in designated school jurisdictions. Results were collected, shared, discussed, and refined.

In the process of trial and development, I realized we were leaving out important stakeholders in our work: teachers, parents, and other community members. If we were to expect an effective implementation of the standards, teachers and parents would have to take an active role in developing curriculum standards and assessment instruments.

For this reason, I decided to hold a series of interactive workshops/meetings with parents and teachers after administering the trial tests. This was not an easy task, since most of the parents are not proficient in the English language and have very limited knowledge of concepts like “curriculum” and “assessment.” However, relating these terms to daily examples in their own lives helped create greater understanding. We then focused our attention on anonymously reviewing and carrying out brief analyses of student papers.

Responses from both parents and teachers were very enlightening. While discussing papers that had received a “poor” rating, parents started blaming the teachers for not doing their jobs. In return, the teachers blamed the parents for not preparing their children for learning and the RMI Ministry of Education for not providing teaching materials that would make it possible for them to work more efficiently. I stood back and let them release their frustrations and confusions.

Once they had let out steam, we were all ready to constructively take a new look at the student papers. Strengths and weaknesses were pointed out. Not surprisingly, we found that common weaknesses included writing in English and mathematics problemsolving.

Using charts, we all worked together to align the assessment items with their respective content standards, benchmarks, and other expectations. We drew concept maps showing how different curriculum areas could work together to help implement specific expectations.

Most importantly, parents’ roles became clearer. They began to see how they could help prepare their grade 1 children so that they could proceed to create picture stories and write 3-word sentences about them. Funnily, even with names cut out, some parents recognized their children’s papers just by looking at their picture stories. They were amazed that through a simple activity like drawing pictures their children could relay a very detailed story of events that had taken place at their homes the previous day.

Importantly, both parents and teachers could see that they did not need a boxful of materials or a college degree to help children learn better. Parents realized that they could greatly help through simple efforts like creating a quiet space and time for doing homework and being regularly available to tell stories or read the Bible (the only book in many of these isolated homes).

At the end of the sessions, parents and community members raised constructive questions and requested more workshops. Many parents even started using the English words “curriculum” and “assessment,” since there are no single, direct vernacular translations for these terms in their native language.

In the follow-up sessions, there was no more blame-shifting. Teachers, parents, and other participants recognized that students’ weaknesses were an indication to all that help was needed and that it is everybody’s responsibility to help meet students’ needs. By involving parents in the curriculum standards and assessment development process, the true meaning of assessing for learning came to life in a small community where the majority of the population is not “educated” – at least not according to the Western definition of the word.