Category Archives: Testing

The U of Kentucky raised its minimum score on the ACT for freshman admissions this year. Just so happens that the number of black freshmen enrolling at UK is down 40%, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

This is not surprising as the ACT (and the SAT) have long histories of discriminating against people of color as well as women (ACT), and working class students. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, <a href=”http://www.fairtest.org” has a very useful resource page on the problems with university testing. FairTest says:

“Standardized tests such as the SAT, ACT, LSAT, MCAT, GMAT, and GRE are promoted by their developers as important tools for admissions offices to use in distinguishing between students from vastly different backgrounds. What the tests’ developers fail to say is how poorly the exams predict students’ future performance at the undergraduate and graduate level. Nor do they honestly address the racial, gender, and economic inequities in admissions, financial aid, and participation in special programs that stem from the use of standardized tests.”

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Lerone Wilson is a 23 year-old former student teacher and “No Child Left Behind” is his first film. The press releases for the film, which premiers next month in New York, claim “he film explores the triumphs and shortcomings of President Bush’s education reforms, with particular focus on the New York City schools, and Mayor Bloomberg’s education reforms. The filmmaker also returns to the Michigan schools he attended while growing up, to further document the changing landscape of public education.”

“One woman who saw the film’s trailer on my website, even called to berate me about how I was essentially a liberal propagandist.” he recalled. Wilson has since re-edited the film’s trailer, yet complaints concerning its alleged political leanings continue from liberals and conservatives alike. “I’ve seen lots of hurtful, and offensive remarks flung around surrounding this issue. But after producing this film I’ve realized it’s not out of ill will, rather because it’s an issue that so many people have a vested interest in, and care passionately about.”

One of the clips on the film’s website shows kids reading letters they’ve written to NYC Mayor Bloomberg, which clearly communicates the stresses students feel about the high-stakes tests that NCLB demands. While this clip implies that the film will take a critical look on the negative effects of high-stakes tests, the list of interviewees doesn’t bring “liberal propaganda” to mind. The policymakers interviewed for the film include reps from many of the major right-wing think tanks and other test-pushers and public school privatizers including: The Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, and The Education Trust.

Apparrently Wilson thinks these right-wingers are “balanced” by representatives of the NEA and various education administration groups (e.g., American Association of School Administrators), which is unlikely.

Perhaps there are test resisters or other critical voices (e.g., FairTest, Alfie Kohn, Susan Ohanian, Deborah Meier or reps from the New York Performance Standards Consoritium in the film, but the media package doesn’t list anyone who is a major player in the resistance.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see the movie, which premiers September 25 at the Pioneer Theatre in NYC.

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STUDY GREAT IDEAS, BUT TEACH TO THE TEST

New York Times “On Education” Column
July 13, 2005
by Michael Winerip

Becky Karnes, a high school English teacher, recently completed a graduate-level writing course that she loved at Grand Valley State University.

“The course taught us better ways to teach writing to kids,” said Ms. Karnes, a 16-year veteran who is finishing up her master’s degree. “It showed you ways to stretch kids’ minds. I learned so much, I had my eyes opened about how to teach writing.”

Ms. Karnes learned all sorts of exercises to get children excited about writing, get them writing daily about what they care about and then show them how they can take one of those short, personal pieces and use it as the nucleus for a sophisticated, researched essay.

“We learned how to develop good writing from the inside, starting with calling the child’s voice out,” said Ms. Karnes, who got an A in the university course. “One of the major points was, good writing is good thinking. That’s why writing formulas don’t work. Formulas don’t let kids think; they kill a lot of creativity in writing.”

And so, when Ms. Karnes returns to Allendale High School to teach English this fall, she will use the new writing techniques she learned and abandon the standard five-paragraph essay formula. Right?

“Oh, no,” said Ms. Karnes. “There’s no time to do creative writing and develop authentic voice. That would take weeks and weeks. There are three essays on the state test and we start prepping right at the start of the year. We have to teach to the state test” (the Michigan Educational Assessment Program, known as MEAP).

“MEAP is not what writing is about, but it’s what testing is about,” Ms. Karnes said. “And we know if we teach them the five-paragraph essay formula, they’ll pass that test. There’s a lot of pressure to do well on MEAP. It makes the district seem good, helps real estate values.”In Michigan, there is added pressure. If students pass the state tests,
they receive $2,500 college scholarships, and in Ms. Karnes’s
middle-class district, families need that money. “I can’t see myself
fighting against MEAP,” she said. “It would hurt my students too much.
It’s a dilemma. It may not be the best writing, but it gets them the money.”

In this fashion, the five-paragraph essay has become the law of the
land: introductory paragraph; three supporting paragraphs, each with its
own topic sentence as well as three supporting ideas; and summary paragraph.

Students lose points for writing a one-sentence paragraph.

Many English teachers have developed a standard five-paragraph form with
blanks to fill in.

Topic sentence:__________.

Literary example:_________.

Historical example:_________.

Current event:__________.

Concluding sentence:_________.

The National Council of Teachers of English has warned that standardized
state tests mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind law, as well as
the College Board’s new SAT writing sample, are actually hurting the
teaching of writing in this country. For their part, the makers of these
tests emphasize that they don’t mandate a writing formula, and they,
too, say it would be a mistake if schools taught only by the formula.

But Nancy Patterson, the Grand Valley professor who offers the popular
course for teachers here, says in the face of those tests, teachers
cling to the formula and it spreads like kudzu. “A lot, particularly the
younger ones, have been raised on the five-paragraph formula, and are
insecure about their own writing,” she said. “They drink up what we do
here, but then go back to teach to the test. It shuts them down. It
narrows the curriculum.”

“If you give kids the formula to write an essay, you’re taking away the
very thinking that a writer engages in,” she said. “Kids are less apt to
develop a writer’s thinking skills.” And it is spreading downward. In
preparation for the fourth-grade state writing test, she said, she sees
third-grade teachers pressed to use the five-paragraph formula. A
teacher in Dr. Patterson’s class described her frustration over a
practice essay test in her district asking third graders to “defend or
refute from a patriotic standpoint” whether a friend should go to a
Memorial Day parade. “For 9-year-olds?” said Dr. Patterson. “Defend or
refute?”

Dr. Patterson has her teachers write in every class – something she did
with her students during 29 years in the public schools. They draw maps
of their neighborhoods, then write a story of something that happened
there. They envision a character they’d like to create, make a paper
doll of it, then pair up with another student and together write a story
with the two characters interacting.

“You’re teaching them narrative – how to tell stories that are dear to
them,” she said. She has them read good essays that start a hundred
different ways – with a quote; a question; a simple declaration of a
problem; a run-on sentence; a word or two. There are lessons on how a
writer blows up an important moment and how to turn a personal piece of
writing into a researched essay.

Recently, Kristen Covelle, 24, has been going on interviews for English
teaching jobs. She mentions exciting things she’s learned from Dr.
Patterson. “The interview will be going great,” Ms. Covelle said, “and
then MEAP will come up. They want to know will I teach to the test,
that’s what they’re looking for. They asked how I feel about using “I”
in writing. Would there ever be a case when “I” is appropriate in an
essay. I knew the answer they want – you’re not supposed to use it. But
I couldn’t say that. I said there could be times, you just can’t close
the door. They didn’t say anything but it was definitely the low point
of the interview.”

Ms. Karnes isn’t totally against the formula. “For kids struggling, if
you can give them a formula and they fill in the blanks, some will pass
the MEAP test who wouldn’t otherwise,” she said. “But it turns into a
prison. It stops you from finding a kid’s potential.”

She loves the last month of school, when state tests are over, she said.
Last spring she did lessons on poetry and writing short stories. “I
found interests and talents in those kids I didn’t know were there,” she
said. “It would have been nice to have a whole year to build on those
things.”

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NYT: State Agrees for 28 Schools to Stay Free of Regents Tests
June 22, 2005

New York State lawmakers and education officials reached a tentative deal yesterday to allow 28 alternative schools to continue to evaluate their students on a portfolio of work, like research papers and science projects, in place of most of the state Regents examinations.The alternative schools, mostly located in New York City and collectively known as the New York Performance Standards Consortium, will maintain an exemption from state tests and be able to use their portfolio assessments through 2010, according to officials involved in brokering the deal.

In 2010, however, the schools would be required to administer the exams unless the Board of Regents approves an alternative. Under the agreement, schools still will be required to administer the Regents exam in English, and the test in math or one other subject to comply with the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The deal, which the board is expected to approve next month, will head off legislation already passed by the State Senate to extend the exemption for the consortium schools for four years.

The deal came on the same day that the board announced a multiyear plan to increase the passing grade from 55 to 65 on the five Regents exams required for high school graduation. Under the plan, students entering ninth grade this fall must score at least 65 on two of the exams and 55 on the others.

By the time the Class of 2011 enters ninth grade three years from now, those students will be required to score at least 65 on all five tests to earn a diploma.

The chancellor of the board, Robert M. Bennett and the state Education Commissioner, Richard P. Mills, announced the plan yesterday in Albany.

At a news conference, Dr. Mills sought to portray the increase to 65 as the latest effort to raise standards. He noted that the board postponed the increase two years ago out of concern that too many children would fail to earn diplomas.

“The time has come and the Regents have decided to raise the passing score for graduation in a stepwise fashion,” he said. “This is now clearly within reach.”

But the long phase-in made clear just how difficult it was for state officials to raise the bar for high school students. And in addition to delaying the full application of the tougher graduation requirements, the Regents yesterday adopted an appeals process for students who fail by a slim margin.

As a result, some officials accused the state of diminishing standards. “The state keeps delaying the date because we have failed to prepare students to pass the Regents tests,” said City Councilwoman Eva S. Moskowitz.

Assemblyman Steven Sanders, chairman of the Assembly Education Committee, praised Regent James R. Tallon Jr. for negotiating a fair compromise. “There should be room for some education programs and assessment that isn’t done in the cookie cutter way,” Mr. Sanders said.

Commissioner Mills did not comment on the deal but said he opposed legislation that would allow an alternative to the exams. Of the schools using portfolios, he said, “If the schools are as good as they claim to be, and I accept those claims, then they ought to be able to pass these exams.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the city teachers’ union, which had supported the alternative schools, said that portfolios in many cases offered as good a measure of students as tests. “We support schools where they have performance assessments that are of equal or greater rigor than the regents,” she said. “And many if not all of these schools do that.”

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Next week at the American Educaitonal Research Association meeting in Montreal, Kathleen Rhoades, a researcher at Boston College’s Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy, will present an analysis of how news about educational testing is “framed” in the media.

Rhoades research–which was funded by the Ford Foundation–explores how reporters framed testing stories in 2001-2002. “Framing” establishes the range of discourse for a news issue–what is emphasized is judged worthy of attention and what is de-emphasized is implicitly set aside as unimportant.Rhoades found one overarching frame, labeled Accountability and three sub-frames: Market Forces, Analysis and Student Stakes.

Rhoades also found that all of these news frames advocated the use of testing as the primary means for reforming schools. Moreover, she found no news frames critical of this perspective. Thus readers were given a one-sided view of testing issues in news.

All four of these frames promote the “official” (e.g., Bush administration, NCLB, corporate) view that tests can and should be used in determining: accountability for test score performance (Accountability frame), school quality (Market frame), general educational quality and equity (Analysis frame), and student eligibility for grade promotion or graduation (Student Stakes frame).

See previous posts to this blog on testing which illustrate why the “official” view is problematic.

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Tinkering with the No Child Left Behind Act is like trying to clean the air one side of a screen door: a waste of time.

It’s good to see The New York Times finally admitting that NCLB is flawed, but they still aren’t admitting its fatal flaw: testing will not and cannot improve schools.

The rebellion of states against the federal NCLB law is growing. This week Connecticut announced that it was preparing to sue the federal government, arguing that Bush’s education law forces the state to administer new standardized tests at a cost of millions of dollars and that Washington refuses to pay for them.

NCLB’s demands for increasing test scores are unrealistic and assure that virtually no schools with large populations of low-income students will meet benchmarks for “adequate yearly progress.”The National Center for Fair and Open Testing (FairTest) points out four ways in which NCLB exacerbates real problems that cause children to be left behind:

* The gauge of student progress in most states has been reduced to reading and math test scores. Many schools have narrowed instruction to what is tested. Education is damaged, especially in low-income and minority schools, as students are coached to pass a test rather than learning a rich curriculum to prepare them for life in the 21st century.

* Most schools fail to meet the unrealistic demands imposed by the law’s “adequate yearly progress” provision. Virtually no schools serving low-income children clear the arbitrary hurdles. Many successful schools have been declared “failing” and forced to drop what works for them.

* Sanctions intended to force school improvement do the opposite. They pit parent against teacher, parent against parent, and school against school. They take funding away from all students to be used by relatively few students. The law’s ultimate sanctions–privatizing school management, firing staff, state takeovers, and similar measures–have no proven record of success.

* The federal government has failed to adequately fund the law. Most states are now cutting budgets to the bone, watching their education resources dwindle just as they are hit with the demands of the law. Neither federal nor state governments are addressing the deepening poverty that makes it difficult for so many children to learn.

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The BC grade 10 exam remains in the news. The Vancouver Sun endorsed the test in an editorial on April 2 and today’s Sun carries letters pro and con.

The Sun’s position (see below) that the test opponents’ fears are unfounded is nonsense.

The Sun’s editorial ignores the overwhleming evidence on the distructive effects of high-stakes tests in general.

Moreover, a new study out of Stanford University, released this week, shows when multiple measures (e.g., academic records, portfolios, research projects, capstones projects, oral exams) are used for graduation, rather than a single test, graduation rates and test scores increase.

The Stanford report concludes that “a multiple measures approach to high school graduation offers a more balanced and informative platform for holding students and schools accountable, one that stimulates discussion not only about how to improve curriculum and instruction, but also how to monitor a student’s individual growth and progress, improve preparedness for college, and build readiness for work in the future.”Here is the Vancouver Sun editorial:
Grade 10 provincials help students to develop valuable skills
Saturday, April 02, 2005

The camp opposing Grade 10 provincial exams is getting crowded, but its fears remain largely unfounded.

Surrey school trustees seem poised to join the opposition camp, as they now join the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, the Vancouver school board and the Vancouver district parent advisory council in expressing concerns about the wisdom of requiring Grade 10 students to take the standardized tests.

Opposition to the exams is twofold:

First, opponents worry that instead of focusing on important things like critical thinking, teachers might feel pressured to “teach the test” — to narrow the curriculum to ensure their students perform well on the exams.

Yet students need the ability to think critically to perform well on any exam. So teachers would be ill- advised to skip the fundamentals if they want their students to do well on the provincial tests.

Second, many opponents have expressed concern that the exams might increase pressure on students and thereby boost drop-out rates.

That concern is important enough. It’s possible that we do make too many demands on high school students, but scrapping the Grade 10 exams won’t solve the problem. After all, were the exams eliminated, they would merely be replaced by another form of evaluation.

Further, the tests aren’t likely to place kids under undue pressure since they account for only 20 per cent of students’ final marks (if that’s considered too onerous, it’s always possible to reduce the amount.)

In any case, if pressure really is a serious problem — and that’s something we’d have to study — the only way to solve the problem would be through a thorough curricular review, rather than by eliminating a single set of exams.

There’s also little evidence that the exams boost drop-out rates, and most students perform well on them. According to the Ministry of Education, 88 per cent of students passed English 10 exams, 79 per cent passed science 10 and 90 per cent passed the exam for principles of math 10.

That so many students do well reveals that our teachers and schools are doing something right. That’s one of the benefits of standardized exams — we can see how we’re doing, and we can also identify and assist schools whose students’ performance is sub par.

There’s an even more important reason to retain the exams. Exam writing isn’t just a test of knowledge of critical thinking ability, but is a skill in itself. By taking the Grade 10 exams, students will be better prepared for the Grade 11 and 12 exams (few people seem ready to eliminate the tests in those grades). The Grade 10 exam therefore acts as a dress rehearsal, a chance for students to practise writing a new type of exam before it counts for much.

Whether we like it or not, exams are a fact of life, both in high school and beyond. As such, rather than focusing on the negatives, opponents should recognize that the tests are preparation for the future, a chance for students to develop valuable skills that will help them throughout their lives.

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Vancouver Sun
Monday

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