He makes it clear that problems being faced by some schools in some areas should not direct policy and law making for all schools.  I haven’t seen much vilification of public school teachers in the media, but then my radar is a little more sensitive toward the vilification of homeschoolers.  As a teacher, I received nothing but respect but maybe that is a curiosity of working in a 100% Hispanic school district.  At any rate, he does a fine job of outlining the main problems with No Child Left Behind and the testing craze it has spawned.

I.  Watered down curriculum:

First, by forcing all students to pass certain tests, we’ve essentially had to “water down” important courses. In New York, for example, the biology curriculum has been gutted of content so that everybody can pass a “Regents level” science exam. The new algebra curriculum is great, but the cutoff score is so low that students have figured out that practically anybody who can fog a mirror can pass it. Under the guise of raising standards for all, we end up selling short our most capable students. There is little reward to excel, only to “pass the test.” Both ends of the spectrum get ignored at test time just to get enough students “over the cut score.” By their very design, “magically” determined cutoff scores can be manipulated to produce a predetermined number of students who will pass a given test. Beating the testing game has become an end instead of a means to an end. (Emphasis mine).

There was a time when teachers in my district were shown a graph with a little bubble, the target students.  Children above that bubble would do fine with or without you, children below that bubble were too far from the target to waste resources on.  Almost all instruction was focused on that small bubble near the middle where the teacher was most likely to to be able to have a measurable effect come testing time.

II.  Waste of instructional time

Now, all year long, precious days are lost and enormous amounts of money are spent on annual testing. Out here in the country we have a saying: “Nobody ever fattened a calf by weighing it.” Unfortunately, we’ve figured out that only tested subjects “count” anymore. Many of our limited resources get pumped into the few areas that get tested; other areas are given short shrift when it comes to funding, staffing and, more importantly time. (Emphasis mine).

Yeah.  Once I counted up the required hours for all the “core” (meaning tested subjects), I had exactly five minutes left in the day to teach science, art and history.  I can’t help but laugh when people talk about homeschoolers potentially weak in science.  Who in the public school system cares about science anymore?

III.  Boxing Children Rather than Developing Individual Talents and Interests

In order to play the NCLB game and to avoid having the stigma of being labeled a “failing school,” there is a lot of pressure not to classify needy students in order to avoid having to disaggregate data and make AYP for special education students as a separate subgroup. In addition, students with very limited abilities are dumped into classes that are way beyond their developmental abilities instead of being given appropriate instruction at a level at which they can be successful. Some have been forced to sit through lengthy exams that they have no hope of passing. In the same vein, we need to recognize that not all students will want to pursue a four-year college degree.  (Emphasis mine)

So, uh, now that we’ve established what the current fixation on testing is really accomplishing in many schools, let’s make the homeschoolers play the game, too.

Make homeschooled students take the same tests as public school students are required to take in order to continue homeschooling.

How much sense does that make?  But I’ve written on this subject at length before and shan’t go into it again:

• Why would homeschoolers object to state testing.
• A more concrete objection to testing homeschools.

But it does seem a bit ironic to spend most of a letter attacking testing and then throw a few more kids into the crazy mess it has created.

homeschool homeschooling No Child Left Behind standardized testing

The Thirst for Freedom

I have gone into the testing issue a few times and my objections really rest on the fact that in a free society, private citizens are not accountable to the state. The state needs probable cause to search my home for evidence of illegal activity and the same should hold true for the mental capacities of my children. It is a philosophical objection based in my understanding of individual rights and of what it means to have a limited government. In the interest of saving a little space, I’ll just point out two past posts which really go into this issue in more depth:

• Why would homeschoolers object to state testing?
• My written testimony before the NE state legislature

But there are other issues with standardized testing than individual liberties in a free society. First, we need to look at the purpose of standardized testing:

• To report how well schools are performing to the public.

This is the real thrust of the accountability movement and is really an important function of standardized testing. I think this has gone to an unhealthy extreme in American education and I hope the pendulum will soon begin to swing the other direction. But the goal is a good one: provide parents with an independent measure to aid them in making educational decisions for their children. The point is similar to that made in the entries I linked above: in a free society, it is the state that is accountable to the people and it is we that maintain oversight of its functioning. I as a parent and as a taxpayer have a right to know what is being taught in the public schools and whether or not it is effective. I, however, am in no way accountable to the state or to the public for what I teach my children.

• To focus learning and instruction to state standards and key concepts.

This is the real problem with testing homeschoolers. We are not bound to state standards and we do not necessarily purchase curriculum aligned to state standards. On the surface, it may seem that a child that can read should be able to pass a reading test or a child that has been taught math should be able to pass a math test, but this is not necessarily the case. Almost half of my first grade class flunked our first benchmark when I was teaching because the district tested using a test from a different publisher than the math program our school was using. When we threw out the problems that had not yet come up in our program, my kids excelled. Looking over one standardized math assessment, my daughter would struggle with the section on congruent shapes because we haven’t talked about them yet. And there are other issues. The test talks about “fact families” but this concept has another name in her math book. She may or may not be able to figure it out from the question and available answers, but who knows what she will decide a “family” is when applied to numbers. She can, however, add and subtract numbers to three places with regrouping, a skill which is not on the test. So if she did poorly on this test, would it mean we had “done nothing?” Or just that we are doing things differently than the state schools?

And there are other problems which come with high stakes testing in general, whether it is in the public school or the homeschool. This gets a bit technical, but standardized tests, even those which are “criterion referenced” are not designed to make sure that all students have mastered a certain proficiency level. They are designed to discriminate between high achievers and low achievers, meaning that a student could achieve a basic proficiency in the subject matter and still fail the test. A summary of how these standards-based tests are developed which demonstrates that the idea of “some basic quality control testing” is not as easy as it might at first appear:

During the construction of both norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests, test makers use a pilot test to determine which items (test questions) will appear on the finished test administered to students on testing day. The survivor items are ones that possess the proper statistical profile: survivor items are those that “discriminate” between high-scoring and low-scoring students. In other words, test makers only want items that are answered correctly by high scoring students and answered incorrectly by low scoring students. Any items that are answered correctly by almost all students will be eliminated from the final test. Items that almost everyone answers correctly are considered “too easy for the target population” (Massachusetts Department of Education, 2005, p. 102). Such “easy” items provide little helpful psychometric information; in selecting test items, test-makers want to choose the items that will be most helpful in distinguishing among students of differing abilities. Validity of high-stakes standardized test requirements for homeschoolers: a psychometric analysis

I am reminded of a situation related in a professional development seminar I attended in Texas back when Bush was governor. Texas students had gotten a little too good at the story problems and were recognizing the “key words” to determine whether a story problem called for addition or subtraction. So the language of the test began to change, resulting in problems that I as an adult had to read twice to figure out what they wanted…for a third grade assessment!

It is not that I think standardized testing is “evil.” It is just that I recognize its limitations. I have no problems with parents testing their own children. Many do…and I have as well. But the scores should be for the parent’s information to guide instruction, not as a comparison to children in other educational settings and certainly not as a requirement to continue to homeschool.

And one more old post for those of you who just love reading about psychometric testing: Standardized Testing: An American Addiction.

Unfortunately, Nebraska is looking at leaving this unique system of accountability behind. Legislative Bill 1157 recently was voted out of the Education Committee and has been prioritized by senator Greg Adams of York. This will do away with our current innovative model (discussed more below) and replace it with a single, state-wide assessment. Instead of Nebraska leading the nation in assessment and accountability, we are considering falling in step with the rest of the nation and its fixation on standardized testing as a single method of judging a student’s educational success.

Doug Christensen, Nebraska’s state commissioner of education, explained to Time Magazine for the article, “How Nebraska Leaves No Child Behind “

“Our public schools are embedded in those communities and those families. So why wouldn’t we first trust those folks? We believe you create the capacity at the local level to do the right thing in the first place, and then you don’t need the state or federal government looking over your shoulder.” TIME

This concept of using the state to empower local governments, schools and communities to provide an excellent education for all Nebraska children is perfectly addressed through our innovative testing model, the School-Based Teacher-led Assessment Reporting System, otherwise known as STARS. This has yielded impressive results, with Nebraska tying Mississippi for the highest percentage of elementary students meeting federal accountability scores in reading (87%) with similarly high numbers in math and in middle schools.

The current model also has a growing list of praise and endorsements:

• The US Department of Education which describes our system as “the nation’s most innovative assessment system (pdf).”
• FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing cites STARS as a model for assessment.
• The National Council on Measurement in Education,

“…the following lessons can be learned from Nebraska’s experience. Teacher-led assessment systems appear to be both possible and effective in developing benefits such as increased assessment literacy and positive impacts on classroom instruction.” NDE

• An independent study by Susan Brookhart, Coordinator of Assessment and Evaluation, School of Evaluation, Dubuesne University, which determined the STARS system to be both valid and reliable (pdf).
• Senator Edward Kennedy, who met with state officials while the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee deliberated on revisions to NCLB and was impressed with our results.

The current system avoids many of the problems with No Child Left Behind and the resulting high stakes testing by creating assessment tools intended not to punish students, teachers and districts but to inform teachers and guide instruction. As Pat Roschewski, Director of Statewide Assessment for Nebraska, describes it,

It’s not so much an accountability tool as part of the curriculum, instruction, assessment loop. The Rural School and Community Trust

Which is exactly what good assessment is supposed to do. This is possible because STARS does not rely solely on information obtained by a single, statewide standardized test, but may include observations, rubrics, portfolio assessments, teacher input, writing samples, test scores and other student work. This encourages classroom instructions focused on higher order thinking tasks, including writing, problem solving and critical thinking rather than lower order tasks, such as memorization typical of standardized tests.

With the short legislative session, this legislation may conceivably be passed by the legislature before the public really gets a chance to find out what is going on. For those who wish to preserve Nebraska’s unique system of local control in education, please take a moment to write your senator, voicing your concern. Parents, teachers and local school officials know more about the individual needs of our state’s students than the Nebraska legislature or officials in Washington. Let us preserve their autonomy for the benefit of all of Nebraska’s public school students.

*LB987 is a very similar bill which seems to have died in committee.  Senator Raikes was its only proponent with several opponents.  LB 1157, however, has adopted many of the same features.

This is part of a project I am working on to fight legislation which recently passed out of the education committee and has received priority status thus will likely be debated and passed by the legislature this session. It had one lonely opponent in the hearing presented by NSEA (our state chapter of the NEA) representative Jay Sears. Nebraska is the last state in the union with true local control of education, from funding to accountability. LB 1157 will change that, by doing away with our current testing and replacing it with a single statewide test and the creation of a commission independent of voter control to advise the legislature and the elected State Board of Education on education matters.

[tags]homeschool, home school, LB 1157, Raikes, STARS[/tags]

Objection: Raised by “reality check” in the comment section of the Lincoln Journal Star blog.

” If parents are properly homeschooling their children, then a test should not be a problem. “

This argument is appealing on the surface. Many have the same reaction when certain surveillance activities are suggested to protect us from crime. If you have nothing to hide, what are you worried about? It is tempting to respond with snarky quips like, “If you aren’t pushing drugs, police searching your home should not be a problem.” While this does illustrate a flaw in the reasoning, ie., people should only be subjected to searches, intellectual or physical, if they are suspected of wrongdoing, I would like to look at some of the underlying assumptions of the objection.

Why is testing objectionable to homeschoolers?

1) It assumes that the state’s measurements are valid and reliable enough to make a life-altering decision for each and every homeschooled child.

Interestingly, the National Education Association (NEA) objects to several key components of the No Child Left Behind Act, and is working to reform the bill as it is being discussed in the nation’s capital. Priority area number one:

Use more than test scores to measure student learning and school performance.
• Include multiple measures of student learning and school effectiveness instead of the current one-day snapshot based solely on standardized tests.
• Reward progress over time to improve student achievement at all levels.
• Recognize individual needs of students (Special Education; English Language Learners.)

But if the teachers are teaching appropriately, why are they worried about the test? Because even the NEA recognizes that it is ridiculous to judge a child’s entire school year by a single test taken at the end of the year and then hold the teacher accountable for the results.

And specifically regarding the notion of “life altering decisions,” the companies behind this testing say that their tests should not be used this way. Their tests were designed to be one assessment of many, a sort of objective check against the real assessment done by a teacher in the classroom. They were not intended to be the sole determiner of whether little Johnny passes to the fourth grade…or is allowed to stay in his homeschool.

Because these tests are subject to error and subjective scoring, the testing industry’s code of conduct specifies that they not be the basis for life-altering decisions about students. Yet many states continue to use them for that purpose, and the industry has done little to stop it. The New York Times

For more on the negative effects of standardized testing, check my previous entry on No Child Left Behind, especially the comment thread.

A single test score should never be used to determine a child’s promotion or placement. (An aside, but I wonder whether Senator Schimek might at all be swayed by the NEA’s position on the use of standardized testing as an accountability measure given her strong alliance with the NEA?)

2) It assumes that the state rightfully oversees the education of the child.

That this is even entertained is telling in how far we have drifted from our founding principles. The fact that it is so widely accepted is disconcerting. July 4, 1776 America drafted a document that was a declaration to the world on what we thought just government was and where it came from. Children are still required to memorize it in school today. We just do not seem to apply it very often. An excerpt and some commentary:

We hold these truths to be self-evident,

Meaning that they shouldn’t have to be explained.

that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

Unalienable, meaning they cannot be taken from you. In fact, according to the dictionary, if something is unalienable you cannot even give it away.

that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. —

Liberty:

Freedom from restraint, in a general sense, and applicable to the body, or to the will or mind. The body is at liberty, when not confined; the will or mind is at liberty, when not checked or controlled.

If liberty applies to the mind, and is unalienable, the state cannot direct education. Parents can certainly choose among all of the educational opportunities available to them, but the education system remains accountable to the parent. The parent is not accountable to the state.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —

Good government exists to secure these rights. And again, we look over the state. The state does not look over us. Tie this to the fourth amendment (the one about being secure in your person, houses, papers and effects and not being subject to searches without probable cause), and you can see why it is that homeschoolers so heartily object to state oversight and testing requirements.

It isn’t because we have something to hide. It is because in a free and just society, the state needs reason to believe we are hiding something before they come looking for it. The label of “homeschooler” is not probable cause.

This entry is the product of some of my thinking in regards to recent legislation which would limit the independence of homeschools in Nebraska. I wrote more on LB 1141 last week, and have also collected some contact information for those interested in writing their senators. Also note: I have started a section in my sidebar to track the bill’s progress in the senate and link to discussion on it. It has its first hearing date: February 26, 2008.

______

For more information on LB 1141, you can click on the category LB 1141 and find everything I have written so far.

[tags]homeschool, homeschooling, LB 1141, testing[/tags]

Nearly three-quarters of survey participants (70 percent) cite deficiencies among incoming high school graduates in “applied” skills, such as professionalism and work ethic, defined as “demonstrating personal accountability, effective work habits, e.g. punctuality, working productively with others, time and workload management.”

More than 40 percent of surveyed employers say incoming high school graduates hired are deficiently prepared for the entry-level jobs they fill. The report finds that recent high school graduates lack the basic skills in reading comprehension, writing and math, which many respondents say were needed for successful job performance. The Conference Board

This sounds great for homeschoolers. Not to capitalize on the failures of public institutions or anything, but how many of us cite character related issues as a motivation for homeschooling? Not surprisingly, of the basic skills cited, writing was singled out as a skill in need of improvement. Good writing skills are critical for communication. Communication is critical to any business trying to compete in the information age. Competition is important in the global economy.

And the global economy is an oft-cited concern in defense of No Child Left Behind whose accountability standards have led to a proliferation of standardized tests. So much so that the testing industry cannot handle the volume of papers to grade, which has already resulted in serious mistakes.

Which brings us to Maryland. Who, with 100% agreement from the local superintendents is doing away with all short and long answer items on the high school exit exam and going completely to a multiple choice format.

The move to a pure multiple-choice format addresses complaints from school systems about how long the tests take to be processed. Written-response questions take much longer to grade than multiple-choice questions because they have to be evaluated by humans, not computers…The Washington Post

It makes perfect sense. Who needs writing?

homeschooling, employment, education, testing

The feeling that something (anything) must be done to identify and treat depression in young people is understandable. But that doesn’t make everything done in the name of suicide prevention advisable.

December 28th, 2006, the New England Journal of Medicine published a report on TeenScreen, a controversial mental health screening program developed by Columbia University and administered in schools in 42 states. The article gives some statistics related to suicide among adolescents and states,

These grim statistics argue strongly for early detection and intervention and provide a rationale for mental health screening among teenagers. The premise is that the primary risk factors for suicide–mood disorder, a previous suicide attempt, and alcohol or substance abuse–can be identified and treated.

Note that it is the suicide rate, not the effectiveness of TeenScreen, which provides the basis for the testing. The conclusion is a little more disconcerting.

I believe that voluntary mental health screening should be universal. But we need to go beyond school-based screening if we are optimally to reach young people who are at risk for psychiatric illness and suicide. Pediatric clinicians are in an ideal position to detect mental illness in young people, and they should be better trained to probe for and recognize the signs and symptoms of major psychiatric disorders.

The traumatic effects of suicide alone are not justification for any particular course of action, and particularly not for the universal screening of adolescents. There are a number of concerns which come immediately to mind:

Does screening, in fact, have any impact on suicide attempts? (Short answer, no.)

Exactly how prevalent is suicide? (It ranks third among children…right after unintentional injuries and homicide. In real numbers, we are talking about 0.01% of children.)

Who is paying for it? And why? (Just as a side note, I’m not one to jump on businesses for trying to make a profit, and the very existence of “BigPharma” is more of an effect of ill-planned attempts at controlling it, in my opinion. Off topic, but this article outlines my reasoning, if taken from the example of “Ma Bell.”)

There are a number of interesting sites out there regarding TeenScreen, and I shan’t bore you with rehashing all the arguments against this program. Tomorrow, I’ll take up my concern. In the meantime, here is a summary of sites worth the time, if you are so inclined to read a little more:

TeenScreen–The Last Straw
TeenScreen Truth
PsychSearch.net
The Heritage Foundation

Related Tags: TeenScreen, mental health, mental testing, mental health screening, suicide, suicide prevention

No breaking news, here, but I’ve been reading about terrorism this evening and that sparked the memory, so I did some web searches. Interesting stuff out there.

This “mind-reading” system, developed by NASA is most interesting. I had actually wondered about this before, because when I think, I “talk.” Given the amount that my tongue and vocal chords twitch when I’m thinking or reading, I’ve always assumed that it wouldn’t be all that difficult to monitor and interpret my thoughts if there were a way to monitor those subtle movements. Apparently there is.

“Biological signals arise when reading or speaking to oneself with or without actual lip or facial movement,” says Chuck Jorgensen, a neuroengineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffet Field, California, in charge of the research. Just the slightest movements in the voice box and tongue is all it needs to work, he says.

(And it is nice to know that I’m not completely weird.) Out of curiosity, what is it like for the deaf? Do their hands twitch?

Earlier this year, the ACLU raised concern about two private companies who were planning on offering Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging as “lie detection” services to government agencies. This technology provides a “real-time” look into the brain while the subject answers questions. Correlations have been observed between certain brain patterns and highly controlled behaviors produced in laboratory settings. Is this enough to warrant suspicion (and possibly eventually conviction) in a crime?

And since we occasionally delve into issues of education, testing and tracking, a look at what this kind of technology could look like in the future as we navigate a world that could have access to our brain wave patterns as we pass through those little security gates at schools and airports. The examples are all obviously fictitious, but certainly not outside the realm of what might be possible given the rate at which already existing technology can improve. And what is the basic motivation behind early childhhood screening? TeenScreen? And aptitude tests in general? We want to know what the future holds for ourselves or our children. We want to remove the doubt and peer into the human mind to see what problems may lurk there and what talents may lie hidden beneath the surface. Passing our brains through a scanner seems a little disturbing to most, but it is not qualitatively different than filling out all those little bubbles on the plethora of non-academic tests pushed daily before our students against which there is little outcry.

Photo: From University of Wisconsin-Madison. Caption reads: “Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) lets scientists “see” local blood flow changes in the brain. This figure illustrates activation detected in the brain area called the amygdala in subjects who were shown pictures evoking strong emotions.”

Related Tags: mind reading, tracking, MRI, fMRI, technology

We are also very much on our way to a national curriculum. With Reading First’s billion dollar budget to fund literacy programs which meet its “research-based” standards, the US Department of Education is exerting incredible control over the curriculum decisions of local school boards. The methods favored heavily by Reading First are those based on behavioral models of education, such as that developed by the University of Kansas, and (the department’s star) Direct Instruction, developed at the University of Oregon. These methods have historically delivered consistently higher standardized tests scores and that is the only measure of success in America.

I have a lot of criticisms of these models, but the fact remains that they are superior to much of what schools are and have been doing in the name of education. The real problem to me is the fact that these initiatives are taking away from local control, a supposed hallmark of our educational system and one of the four pillars of the No Child Left Behind Act. In the act, however “local control” really only means that schools have a little more flexibility in how they spend the money they receive from the central government, not in the way they follow or interpret any of the provisions of the act.

I found this story, A Tale of Two Schools, to be a fascinating look into the real world of applying for federal aid. Clearly, Roosevelt needed some direction. It is the status of such schools that have led many to pressure their state and national government for more control and accountability. These are the situations that end up highlighted in Secretary Spellings’ speeches and op-eds. Of course, increased federal involvement is not the only solution, but it is the solution Americans seem programmed to reach for any time we see a problem.

Cherry Valley highlights the main problem with accepting federal money for any program. They have something that is working…a program similar to what Reading First advocates, in fact. But there are significant differences that they have tailored to meet the needs of their students that would be eradicated if they followed the guidelines necessary to secure a grant from the Department. For any system to be successful, it has to be adaptable.

Then, of course, there is always the question of whether or not students need to learn anything in elementary school other than reading and math. The 180 minutes of language instruction and 90 minutes of math instruction required per day in these programs leaves very little of the day for any other subject. I figured that after I accounted for phys ed, lunch, announcements and computer lab, I had about five minutes left to deal with all other subjects.

Related Tags: standards, testing, curriculum, education, public school, NCLB

The most merciful form of what I ventured to call “eugenics” would consist in natality for the indication of superior strains or races, and in so favoring them that their progeny shall outnumber and gradually replace that of the old one. (Life and Letters of Francis Galton)

How is this to be done? Galton isn’t clear, but he advocates the setting aside of morality.

What is meant by improvement? What by the syllable eu in “eugenics,” whose English equivalent is “good”? There is considerable difference between goodness in the several qualities and in that of the character as a whole. The character depends largely on the proportion between qualities, whose balance may be much influenced by education. We must therefore leave morals as far as possible out of the discussion, not entangling ourselves with the almost hopeless difficulties they raise as to whether a character as a whole is good or bad. Moreover, the goodness or badness of character is not absolute, but relative to the current form of civilization. (The American Journal of Sociology)

He produced many statistical models for the measurement of intelligence, desiring to give the study of human behavior the same respect as the natural sciences. He also founded the Eugenics Society, recently renamed the Galton Institute.

British contemporary and admirer, Charles Spearman, was deeply impressed with Galton’s concept of “general mental ability” and sought to quantify it through his own research with similar goals. In 1927, in his treatis, The Abilities of Man (page 8), Spearman writes,

An accurate measurement of everyone’s intelligence would seem to herald the feasibility of selecting the better endowed persons for admission into citizenship–and even for the right of having offspring.

He set out to measure the human mind, discovering a “general factor” of intelligence called “g.” he compared this to the breakthroughs in astronomy and physics, the likes of Copernicus, further attempting to give his research the impression of hard science. Analysis of his research at a village school in Berkshire is interesting and wrought with difficulty. He measured their abilites in a variety of school subjects> He found strong correlation between certain subjects, particularly the classics and language, leading him to determine his law of “Universal Unity of Intellective Function.” He used this as a basis to posit that,

…public examination on school subjects would be a useful proxy for objectively measuring one’s overall intelligence, and therefore determine one’s place in the social hierarchy.

Hence the idea that performance on a standardized test of school subjects equates with general intelligence and is a valid basis for sorting students and determining the opportunities that would be afforded them. Little has changed but the vocabulary in the last 80 years.

*The main difficulty with Spearman’s research is that he determined that performance in specific school subjects equated with general intelligence and his test was constructed thus. Is it any surprise that a child who did well on the test would then display correlations to the measure of intelligence? His sample size is also incredibly small…a few dozen students at a village school in Berkshire.

eugenics, standardized tests, testing, education, homeschooling, Galton

We are one of the few societies that place so much emphasis on intelligence tests. In most societies there is more emphasis on what people accomplish.

This obsession is so enmeshed in our culture that we do not even think about these tests as we pick up yet another number 2 pencil to fill in the bubbles. They stand, unchallenged, at every point in our life journey. Intelligence tests designed for children as young as three are used to sort children for highly desired preschool spots in highly acclaimed private schools, Christian and seclular alike. Tests and practice tests are administered in elementary, junior high and high school and are used to determine the tracking of students into honors, academic or remedial courses, regardless of class performance and teacher recommendation. A disparity between test scores and performance is always questioned. A child with low scores and high class achievement is an “overachiever.” When the opposite is true, the child is determined to have a learning disability because their performance is not living up to their supposed aptitude. The guidance counselor may administer a standardized test to determine what career a child should pursue (I’m supposed to become a neurosurgeon or a gas attendant).

Once a child leaves school, he must pass the SAT to get into college and the GRE to get into grad school. Things are no different in the job market. It is a test score, not recommendations, grades or job performance, that determines your ability to become a school bus driver, truck driver, train conductor, fast food manager, teacher and a plethora of other professional and not-so-professional positions. Even homeschoolers, who have traditionally been against being held accountable to state-mandated standardized tests, point to higher SAT scores to prove that they deliver as effective an education as the public schools.

Some have claimed that our public school system’s obsession with test scores is part of a larger scheme for the central government to take over education and institue a “cradle-to-grave” planned economy. While these tendencies certainly exist, an overemphasis on this ignores a deeper problem lying at the heart of our culture and why we accept and even embrace education plans with a high emphasis on test scores and accountability. It also overlooks the fact that American parents overwhelmingly support these tests. Within the American psyche is a basic, albeit flawed, equation that states:

Ironically, actual performance is routinely overlooked in favor of test scores in attempting to predict a candidate’s subject mastery, readiness for higher education or ability to perform in the workforce. But what do these tests actually measure?

There are essentially two issues in testing which every test designer, administrator and evaluator must take into consideration: validity and reliability. Validity essentially determines whether a test measures what it intends to measure. Reliability tells you how likely the results are to be repeated. Standardized tests have the allure of perceived validity because of their clear format and easily quantifiable scores. But how valid are they, really?

Take this item from New York’s practice test:

The year 1999 was a big one for the Williams sisters. In February, Serena won her first pro singles championship. In March, the sisters met for the first time in a tournament final. Venus won. And at doubles tennis, the Williams girls could not seem to lose that year.

The story says that in 1999, the sisters could not seem to lose at doubles tennis. This probably means when they played.

A. two matches in one day
B. against each other
C. with two balls at once
D. as partners

Is this test measuring reading skills or tennis knowledge? A good reader could probably figure out the question, but the child with knowledge of the rules of tennis has a decided advantage.

And beyond isolated exam items, is the story much different? What are these tests really measuring? Peter Sacks, in his book, Standardized Minds, concludes that “scoring high on standardized tests is a good predictor of one’s ability to score high on standardized tests.” Research has not been able to correlate achievement on these tests with any future success in school or work. Some other facts pointed out in his book:

• There is almost no relationship between scores obtained on the GRE and performance in graduate school.
• A student’s high school record is the best predictor of early college success. Adding the results of the SAT to this adds little to the prediction of college performance.
• There is a strong correlation between standardized test scores and and the socioeconomic status of the parents. “The data is so strong in this regard that one could make a good guess about a child’s standardized test scores by simply looking at how many degrees her parent have and what kind of car they drive.”

And with little or no measurable benefit to students or to predicting future success, these test have been allowed to shape instruction. According to educational researcher Bruce C. Bowers,

However, the main purpose of standardized testing is to sort large numbers of students in as efficient a manner as possible. This limited goal, quite naturally, gives rise to short-answer, multiple-choice questions. When tests are constructed in this manner, active skills, such as writing, speaking, acting, drawing, constructing, repairing, or any of a number of other skills that can and should be taught in schools are automatically relegated to second-class status.

In subsequent posts, I will look more at the history and origins of this testing and how it took such an enamored hold on our nation. In the meantime, check out this excerpt from the first chapter of Standardized Minds.

standardized tests, testing, education, homeschooling, home school, NCLB, No Child Left Behind