Pencils Down, Voices Up: Students Stage Protest Over High-Stakes Testing

It’s not often that the newsroom hears from middle school students. But after Teeland Middle School students skipped lunch Wednesday to protest the i-Ready Diagnostic Test, their message was impossible to ignore.

Led by student Clara Hoffer, the group said they were concerned that some of the math questions required different paths of solutions than they were being taught. “We’re protesting because i-Ready teachers (teach) us one way to do math and when we’re in our math classes, the teachers teach us a different way to do math so it’s confusing and difficult to understand what they’re trying to teach us.”

Hoffer went on to explain that their goal is to respectfully raise awareness and encourage fairness and understanding within their school community.

The students would like to see the teachers take the test for themselves to gain better understanding for the material they are being evaluated on and perhaps coordinate class instruction around the material.

“I think that it’s unfair that we have to be doing it and the teachers don’t have to at all, and they don’t understand what we’re doing,” said student Brooklynn Moore during the protest.

The i-Ready Diagnostic is an online, computer-adaptive assessment designed to measure student proficiency and growth in reading and mathematics, often used by schools to monitor student progress three times a year.

It adapts to each student's ability, making questions harder or easier to identify specific skill gaps, with results allowing educators to personalize instruction. If a student answers correctly, the next question is harder; if they answer incorrectly, it becomes easier. This allows the tool to pinpoint a student's exact learning level.

Students in the Mat-Su Borough School District typically take the i-Ready Diagnostic assessment three times per academic year: in the fall, winter, and spring. There are two separate tests taken in two separate sessions, in both reading and mathematics subjects.

For the reading portion of the test, the i-Ready provides data on various reading domains, including phonological awareness, phonics, high-frequency words, vocabulary, and comprehension. The measured math domains include number sense, algebra, geometry, and measurement.

While students might get breaks when taking the test, Hoffer said that they are short and it can make it harder for some students, especially when a high volume of correct answers on the test forces them to advance to high school-level work.

Results indicate if a student is on, above, or below grade level, which assists teachers in providing appropriate interventions.

Hoffer said they would like the district to make it required that teachers also take the test because ultimately it would make everyone better. “It would help us learn from the teachers, not from a screen so if they take it, they could help us understand what we’re learning on i-Ready.” She says they are planning to bring their concerns to the school district soon.