Test scores and school accountability

My recent posts on No Child Left Behind have focused largely on its exclusive  use of standardized test scores to hold schools --and teachers-- accountable for the work they do.  Many educational researchers question the suitability of standardized testing to adequately assess the academic progress of students, let alone the so-called "performance" of schools.

A related and equally important issue is the role of the media in parroting the proclamations of school officials about "good" and "not-so-good" schools based on those very test scores.  Although I've written about the media issue before, it has recently become a topic of discussion in my EDDRA (Education Disinformation Detection and Reporting Agency) e-mail group.   Here's part of a particularly pointed comment that showed up a couple of days ago:

"I think the coverage of education is on a par with coverage of the other major issues in our society, which is dreadful, incomplete, and shortsighted."

For example:   

"Testing and test scores:   Most of the stories I see in the national and local press deal with schools meeting (or more likely not meeting) target ... scores on standardized tests.... with no recognition that there is little or no research supporting the use of these tests to determine anything.  Or the stories acknowledge there are doubts and concerns about the usefulness, validity and reliability of the tests but then continue on as if that concern is irrelevant... ."

Conventional wisdom accepts testing as the only legitimate (and efficient) means of measuring school outcomes.  Rob Kremer, the charter school proponent, buys into the testing for accountability model.  How else do we hold schools accountable? he asked in a recent comment.  My response was this: through authentic assessment.  That, of course, requires slighlty more money for schools, especially if we continue to insist on publicly validating --holding "accountable"-- the schools which by all measures --literacy, graduation rates, economic productivity-- have served us well for so many years.

Standardized testing been around for as long as I can remember.  I recall taking "achievement tests" as far back as fourth grade, many, many years ago.  But where did they come from?  Jay Mathews of the Washington Post attempts to answer that question in this article.  I especially appreciated this part:

"Critics say standardized testing has robbed schools of the creative clash of intellects that make Plato's dialogues still absorbing. 'There is a growing technology of testing that permits us now to do in nanoseconds things that we shouldn't be doing at all,' said educational psychologist Gerald W. Bracey, research columnist for the Phi Delta Kappan education journal."

Bracey is the founder of EDDRA and a long-time critic of NCLB.   But he's not the only one.   This website and many of its linked articles --like this one-- should be required reading for any newspaper reporter assigned the education beat. 

Maybe then we would read less often about "underperforming" schools. 

 

Comments

[Rob Kremer]

So-called "authentic assessment" is subjectively scored, not reliable and not valid.

Oregon has already gone down this path with the math problem solving tests, writing sample tests, and all the CIM portfolio items.

Although it does have its place in the classroom as a formative assessment, this type of assessment is wholly unsuited to be used for accountability purposes as a summative assessment.

[Terry]

So how then do you assess writing ability? With multiple choice tests? Such tests may yield reliable scores, but are they valid measures of one's ability to write?

I think not.

[Rob Kremer]

Writing "ability" is subjective and is not reliably measured by an essay test. The SAT's writing component is summarily ignored by colleges. Can a teacher grade an essay? Sure. That is a formative assessment, not a high stakes accountability assessment.

Can a standardized test have an essay as a component? Huge problems in scoring reliably.

Now, multiple choice tests can and do test many writing-related skills with total reliability and validity. Everything from grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, all can be assessed through multiple choice tests.

Have you ever read E.D. Hirsch's book? He goes into this question in depth.