Tag Archives: standardized tests

Test-Based Goals: Mission Accomplished?

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What do we want? Don’t you generally hear ordinary citizens say, “I want my children to get a good education”? How many of we garden variety citizens say, “I want my kids to graduate from high school ready to score higher on standardized tests”?

If people don’t understand the proper uses of testing and can’t recognize the misuses of standardized achievement tests, then they can’t possibly know that the country has the wrong goal for public education — set in law and in the minds of Americans.

The “achievement gap” is defined by standardized achievement tests. It can serve as one monitor of equal opportunity. It should not be THE goal of the public education system — but IT IS!

“To close the achievement gap” is a test-based goal set by No Child Left Behind. In Idaho, our state school officer, Mr. Luna, points out that “…results not only show a majority of Idaho schools are high-performing, but also that a vast majority of students are performing at or above grade level in reading and mathematics…While I praise these results, I also know the reality behind this data: Though students are performing better than ever in K-12, they continue to struggle after high school.”

Source: Associated Press

Source: Associated Press

His conclusion is that the standards must be higher and the tests better but that is because he fails to see, or won’t admit, the flaw in the outcome-based (test-based) theory — it narrowed curriculum to what was tested and that isn’t good enough. It isn’t good education; it did meet the test-based goals.

Mission accomplished? – test scores up / students unprepared for life because of a narrowed, test-based curriculum!

UPDATE 5/4/15: The marketing of No Child Left Behind deliberately targeted the largest group we have failed to educate well – black Americans. Why would we continue with this failed outcome-based theory of reform? Because we have been told?

Testing, Testing…1,2,3…

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Tests have always demonstrated that when it comes to educational achievement, a socioeconomic and racial inequality exists in this country. That is our educational legacy — to date.

The obvious was clearly stated by the National Advisory Council on the Education of Disadvantaged Children in 1966 in saying that some children “have not lived in a world of books, or of ideas” and consequentially, “they have not understood concepts in tests devised for the majority of the children of our schools.”  These tests better measure “the results of the child’s opportunity for learning more accurately than his capacity for present or future learning.”

Said another way, standardized tests are one indicator of equality of opportunity, not necessarily the quality of education.

As Douglas B. Reeves, in 101 Questions & Answers about Standards, Assessment, and Accountability, stated in discussing standardized tests, “What these tests can never do is measure a broad concept such as ‘educational quality’ of schools and teachers, and the tests certainly do not measure the general knowledge of students.” But how are we using them today?

We are failing to follow the “Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education” which includes “the recommended uses” for tests and the necessity for understanding “the strengths and limitations of the test” we are using. There are ethical and unethical uses of testing and the data they produce. But no one is being called into account for misuse and abuse of tests and the data they produce.

The whole foundation of the national education reform movement has been based on “OUTPUTS” as judged by standardized achievement tests.

Equality in opportunity cannot be built upon a foundation of sand.

The shifting sands of modern education reforms.

The shifting sands of time brought modern education “reforms” without giving us the changes we need.

Part 7 of ten blogs on The Road to Educational Quality and Equality that started with The March Begins.

 

History Repeats

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Some have marched across this bridge before.

Many crossed this bridge before.

Standards-based education reform of public schools has been tried before.

Around 1913, the industrial “efficiency movement” focused public attention on outcomes but when educators attempted to “routinize teaching,” or standardize it, it didn’t work according to Robert J. Marzano and Jon S. Kendall in “The Fall and Rise of Standards-Based Education.”

And by the late 1930’s research completed by the Cooperative Study of Secondary Schools Standards concluded, among other things, that standardized test scores as the sole means of evaluating schools tended to make “instruction point definitely to success in examinations,” cultivated “a uniformity that was deadening to instruction,” “thwarted the initiative of instructors,” and can “destroy the flexibility and individuality of an institution.” In addition to bringing about a rigid curriculum, the study concluded, this type of testing had little validity for identifying superior and inferior schools and a better method was available. In 1939!

But the plans were set aside while the country addressed the needs of World War II. We moved on, it would seem, unaware of what had come before. And in the process, we changed from looking to improve education by providing the necessary “inputs” to a heavier focus on “outputs.” (Recall the Coleman Report) So that is how we ended up repeating our standards experiment with an even greater emphasis on test scores.

By 2001, the country had become convinced that we needed a federal accountability system and the “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) Act was it! The law focused all of our attention (and dollars) on accountability for all schools totally based on student outcomes as judged by standardized test scores.

We replaced individual “performance” standards with state “curriculum” standards. Now we risk setting national curriculum standards instead of recognizing that children need us to identify their individual strengths and weaknesses and work with them to attain a level of mastery of the classroom curriculum. This isn’t a proposal that gets away from being held accountable to a standard; it’s one that is responsible for meeting the needs of the individual student along with educational standards. This is a philosophy that can take us from a classroom culture of test preparation to a culture of educating each child to the fullest extent of his or her talents — meeting the standards for American excellence and equality.

We made tremendous progress in the sixties and seventies because we followed an educational philosophy focused on providing the necessary “inputs” to the hardest to teach students. Desegregation of schools peaked in the 1980’s and a narrowing of the achievement gap occurred during the 1970’s and 1980’s. Now, the focus is the gap, is the test, is the score, and, the gap persists.

In the march towards equal opportunity in education, we got stuck in the ditch of standardization of children because we set test scores as our goal — in law and in the minds of Americans. The Modern Standards Movement politically overpowered, but did not destroy, the Modern Community Education Movement.

If we can only come to understand standards and their proper use, we have a shot at getting it right— in the minds of Americans and in law.

The big question is; does Congress know enough to get it right this time?

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The March Begins. was the first in this series On The Road to Educational Quality and Equality. Next Up: What Do YOU Mean “Standards”?

A Call for Leadership on Testing

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The Call

The Call

Ever hear a lone coyote howling in the wilderness? If you have, you might also have wondered how long he will go on before another answers his call.

That is how it felt to be “in the know” about standardized tests during the late 90’s when it hit my state and my kid’s classrooms. Where was the information about the ethical use of standardized tests? Where was the information about the strengths and weaknesses of their uses? And today, will this opt-out movement produce any different result? Depends.

I have no reason to believe that our current teaching force or certified leadership is aware of the lessons from the past. In the early 1930’s, the “efficiency movement” proved standardization of teaching was detrimental. In the late 30’s, we proved that standardized tests used as a judgment for school quality narrowed the curriculum and was “deadening to instruction.” And what did we learn from No Child left Behind – the longest, largest experiment in standardization to date?

My hope for the next generation rests on leadership – of all kinds, from all sectors of society. Answer the call.

Hear Us: Time Out from Testing

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Good riddance to 2012; progress on the education front was too sparse to view it as a productive year.

Welcome 2013! Let this be the year that the crucial voice of the people is not only heard but taken to heart and acted upon.

What is important and what message will our taxpayer-sponsored representatives and officials hear from us? Where do we find common ground on education? Ask yourself, what’s essential in order for growing children to become life-long learners? Is it measurable on a standardized test?

Citizens of the United States are obligated to meet the responsibility of providing quality K-12 education. Does that mean that pre-school and college aren’t important? No. But we must focus on our primary duty and what it will take to accomplish that task. K-12, our current system, must be the focus of our collective voices or we will be drowned out by the confusion of too many irons in the fires. We have to stop patching and start fixing — strategically.

Currently, each state is fighting or giving into education legislation that has at its core the principle belief that standardized test scores accurately judge the quality of education a child has received. It is not just an opinion that this is a false assumption; it has been proven – repeatedly – these test scores do not accurately judge a child’s ability to learn or the quality of their school experiences.

Now is the time for our collective voices to rise up and demand we stop this insane and destructive use of our tax dollars. Our precious dollars are better spent on proven school improvement processes.

It’s time for a “time-out” from test-based “reforms.” It’s time to re-evaluate and regroup. Plan to reach out to the people who work for us – the people.