Tag Archive for: education

The “Opt-Out of Educational Assessment” Movement: Just What Exactly Do They Stand For?

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I recently read a disturbing article in the New York Times regarding the “Opt-Out of Educational Assessment” movement in the State of New York.  I find this downright appalling.  There are many sorts of standardized assessments, and the ones we are talking about here exist to improve the quality of education.  They check to see whether students are learning the curriculum, thereby providing some measure of accountability, as well as an index of improvement, to the teachers, schools, districts, and States.  They are used to help students, not hinder them.  By saying that you do not want your students involved in this, you are saying that you don’t want any accountability, and that you really do not care about education at an aggregate level.  You are happy just to send your kids to school and hope that the teacher teaches them something over the course of the year.

It’s also interesting that the article mentions this being in response, in part, to the fact that test scores “plummeted” after the introduction of Common Core.  The author here is definitely biased and/or uninformed.    Why were scores lower?  Because we no longer allowed States to doctor their data.  Under No Child Left Behind, States were required to assess students but could set the cutscores wherever they wanted.  So the backwoods States obviously set the bar pretty low, and reported that large numbers of their students were proficient.  They were also free to adjust their curriculum, i.e., teach 4th grade math in 5th grade so that, wow… the 5th graders seem to do well on math!  The move to Common Core was in part to prevent these two schemes, and of course such states saw much lower numbers of 5th grade math students score as proficient when being tested on actual 5th grade math, with a standard set that was similar to other states.  The Opt-Out of Educational Assessment movement is fighting this.

What is happening here, then is that people are blaming the test purely out of reactionary tendency.  An analogy might be that you are on a weight loss program and have for years intentionally miscalibrated your bathroom scale to read 10 pounds lower.  You get a fitness coach that calls you on it and forces you to correctly calibrate it, and then to actually weigh yourself once a week to see if you are losing weight.  So you blame 1) the scale, and 2) your fitness coach?  That is probably not going to help improve your fitness.  Or the education system.  But go ahead and opt out of weighing yourself.

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Connecticut Requires all 11th Graders to take the SAT

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The State of Connecticut has enacted a new policy to require all 11th grade students to take the SAT (New York Times, 6 Aug 2015).  As a lifelong advocate of quality assessment, this concerns me.  I consider Instruction and Assessment to be the two primary components of Education; instruction without assessment is like a weight loss program without a scale or mirror.  But the assessment has to be done right.  How do we know what is right?  To evaluate this, we need to couch the discussion in the most important concept in assessment: validity.

Validity

Validity refers to whether the score interpretations being made form a test are those for which the test was intended and designed, and are supported by evidence.  One of my graduate school mentors used to say, “The right tool for the right job.”  You could pound in a nail with a screwdriver, but that is not what it was designed for.  The same goes for assessment.  An actual need has to be identified that requires assessment to be done, and the assessment should be designed for that need.  So let’s look at the situation in Connecticut.

What does Connecticut Need?

Connecticut needs a measure of student success, so that they can evaluate whether a student is learning the curriculum.  A curriculum is designated by the State, and is currently moving towards the Common Core, which is a big improvement over the old days where each State did their own… leading States with poor education systems to simply dumb down their curriculum and lower their standards to make it appear that their students were smart.  A test of what a student has learned is achievement.

For what was the SAT designed?

The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is, as the name suggests, a test of aptitude, not achievement.  The story behind the SAT: A century ago, colleges and universities had their own entrance/placement exams.  They realized this was stupid and banded together to form the (creatively named) College Board, to make a common exam, as well as other things.  The test was designed to best predict success in college – nothing about how much the student learned in high school.  Here’s an article that discusses that purpose.  The approach they used was to assess cognitive ability via a few areas, currently Critical Reading, Math, and Writing (scores here).  This isn’t a bad idea, given the purpose of the test.  But the SAT definitely does not assess, for example, how much of the Science curriculum the student has learned in high school

Is there too much testing?

Connecticut obviously felt pressure from parents and teachers that there was too much testing for 11th graders; this article in a local paper shows the sentiment.  I don’t want to dispute that.  What concerns me is that Connecticut seemed to have a choice of eliminating their achievement tests or the SAT.  They need an achievement test to track student learning.  Instead, they dropped the achievement test built for that purpose and kept the SAT, which is designed for a completely different purpose.  What irks me even more is that people who should know better, such as the Superintendent in that article, are apparently not even aware of the basic concepts of assessment.  Instead, he is happy to have to go through the work of trying to set new cutscores on a test that is being misapplied.

So how did this happen?

I think the biggest reason for this, and many other misuses of assessment, is that the vast majority of people, including educators and politicians, are psychometrically illiterate.  Educators are incredibly hardworking, but their focus is instruction (and rightly so).  They have never had exposure to basic concepts like validity and reliability.  As a scientific field as well as a business industry, we need to better educate end users and stakeholders.  This is not limited to K12 Education, by the way.

As for Connecticut, I’d suggest one thing to start: follow the money.  That local article says that the SAT is free for all CT students.  We all know there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone made a very good sale!

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Test Fraud in Minnesota Schools

Local Newspaper Discusses Test Fraud

The St. Paul Pioneer Press recently published an article on instances of test fraud and security breaches experienced in K-12 assessments in the State of Minnesota (where Assessment Systems is located).  The article does a good job at explaining some of the issues:

 

  • The root issue is that the State needs to protect the massive investment it has made in their assessments, and how the validity of the assessments is crucial in making important decisions.  Test fraud has a negative impact, wasting taxpayer money among other negative outcomes.
  • It is noteworthy that there are no stakes for the students tied to the assessments mentioned; that is, they stand nothing to gain by cheating or stealing.  Of course, the vast majority of student and proctors are upright!
  • When it comes to test security, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so MN has focused on the prevention.  I am excited to hear, however, that they are considering the use of statistical indices.

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Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT), the Future of K-12 Assessments

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 Are states prepared?

Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) has been in the news for quite some time as a technology being adopted at the state, and district level to improve the academic assessment performance for K-12 students. Legislation such as NCLB, and a push for a common-core standard have put pressure on many states to find solutions to improve performance and accountability in the classroom. For many state agencies the solution is CAT testing. But are states prepared for this innovation?

In mid-November Governor Malloy of Connecticut appropriated $14 million dollars for the use of CAT testing in Connecticut K-12 schools. This funding will be used to administer CAT end of year tests in grades 3 through 8 and 11. The CAT tests will be aligned to Smarter Balanced Assessments standards used by several other state education agencies across the United States.

Although Connecticut’s commitment to CAT testing will help improve the education performance of Connecticut’s students, many are still concerned about the state’s shortfall in the amount of money being appropriated with computer and bandwidth upgrades. These upgrades are paramount for a successful adoption of CAT testing.  According to WTNH Hartford, the state was only able to distribute $10 million out of the $24 million appropriated for technology upgrades in schools. This poses a central issue, will CAT be implemented successfully?

CAT testing is the innovative technology our country needs to successfully improve our K-12 education. Connecticut’s plan for CAT testing is a great example of what many states will have to deal with very shortly if funding is appropriated for CAT testing.  For many states, significant state-wide upgrades on technology are inevitable for CAT testing to be successfully implemented.

It has already been apparent in many states currently using CAT testing that they are seeing improved performance. What is still not apparent is how CAT testing will be implemented successfully in states where significant technology upgrades are still needed.

Link to WTNH article:

http://www.wtnh.com/news/politics/malloy-14m-in-grant-money-for-schools

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Adaptive Testing and NCLB

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The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is an important piece of US legislation that governs assessment in the K-12 education system.  It is currently up for re-authorization, and language is being considered that will specifically mention computerized adaptive testing (CAT).

“Adaptive testing is proven to be a more effective tool for assessing student performance and competence than standard paper-based testing that only shows whether a student is on grade level.”

-Rep. Tom Petri, R-Wisconsin

Adaptive testing and NCLB work well together, as the advantages of adaptive testing translate well into the classroom as well as to accountability systems.

CAT continues to grow more widespread, especially in relation to the SMARTER Balanced Consortium.  However, most online CAT delivery platforms remain too expensive for many school districts.  FastTest offers an affordable alternative that will deliver CAT assessments which help prepare students for this more sophisticated and precise form of educational assessment.

Read the full article from EdWeek here: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2013/07/house_nclb_rewrite_contains_ad.html.

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Cost of SMARTER Balanced Assessments

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The quote below is from a newsletter released by the SMARTER Balanced Consortium.  Obviously, purchasing student assessments directly from the Consortium will remain expensive, though less expensive than what many states currently pay private vendors.

FastTest , on the other hand, remains exceptionally affordable.  You can utilize our adaptive testing platform to create formative assessments – with the same CAT algorithms, hence a perfect preparation for SMARTER summative assessments – at a fraction of the cost, especially if your district or state has their own item bank.  Contact us to learn how we can help.

Fiction: The costs of these tests are unknown.

Fact: Smarter Balanced has released cost estimates for its assessments that include expenses for ongoing research and development of the assessment system as well as test administration and scoring. The end-of-year summative assessment alone is estimated to cost $22.50 per student. The full suite of summative, interim, and formative assessments is estimated to cost $27.30 per student. These costs are less than the amount that two-thirds of the Consortium’s member states currently pay. These costs are estimates because a sizable portion of the cost is for test administration and scoring services that will not be provided by Smarter Balanced; states will either provide these services directly or procure them from vendors in the private sector.[/dropshadowbox]

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Article on SMARTER Balanced adaptive testing in US schools

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The efforts of the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium are leading to more mentions of computerized adaptive testing in the news.  I recently came across the following article that covers a paper by Mark Reckase, one of the most respected researchers in the field.

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2011/05/computer-adaptive_testing_pose.html

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