Chapter 8: Teaching in Spite Of, Rather than Because Of, the Test: A Case of Ambitious History Teaching in New York State

In an earlier study, my colleagues and I interviewed 13 rural, urban, and suburban New York state (NYS) teachers about their perceptions of the recently-adopted 10th grade Global History and Geography state exam and the new test component, the Document-Based Question (DBQ) (Grant, Gradwell, Lauricella, Derme-Insinna, Pullano, & Tzetzo, 2002). From the interviews, we identified three themes with regards to their reactions to the test: The teachers were unsure if the new exam was an adequate measure of student learning, they questioned the exam being a move toward higher standards, and they did not believe the new exam or DBQ to be a strong influence on their teaching practice. The last theme intrigued me because representatives from the New York State Education Department (NYSED) have reported that, since the introduction of the DBQ on social studies exams, teachers’ instructional programs have changed, largely for the better. However, as the above quotation suggests, teachers did not report significant changes to their teaching. I wondered, then, how are other teachers making sense of the changes in the NYS social studies exams, specifically the adoption of the DBQ? Do social studies teachers of other grade levels share these global history and geography teachers’ views? Do tests influence teachers’ instructional choices and, if so, to what extent?