Testing

High-stakes testing that distorts classroom practice and puts excessive pressure on students, together with the misuse of test data to draw unwarranted conclusions, have made educators wary of assessments in general. Yet tests, when created carefully and used appropriately, have their rightful place in education.

It’s helpful to differentiate between high-stakes tests and low-stakes tests. High-stakes tests, such as New York State’s standardized ELA and math exams, decide student placement and judge schools’ compliance with state and federal requirements. Low-stakes tests (such as formative assessments or diagnostic assessments) are for classroom use. These tests are sometimes described as assessments for learning, rather than assessments of learning.

Tests set out to assess different things. Criterion-referenced tests, such as New York State’s standardized tests, measure achievement against specific learning standards or criteria. They answer the question, “Did this student meet the standards?” Norm-referenced tests, by contrast, measure students against each other or against an average. They answer the question, “How does this student rank against his or her peers?” New York City's achievement tests were norm-referenced until 1999. Psychometricians (test developers) say that tests designed for one purpose, such as measuring student achievement, should not be used for another purpose, such as assessing teacher quality.

There are several ways to interpret test scores:

as a "snapshot" or point-in-time evaluation of a student's knowledge and abilities;
as a growth measure, showing a student’s progress from one point in time to the next; and
as a value-added measurement, comparing a student’s predicted score with his actual score to assess the value added by his or her teacher, school or district.

In addition to classroom tests and state tests, there are national tests, such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) that gives periodic tests in English, math, reading, science, civics and other topics to samples of U.S. students, and international tests, such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) .

Different tests of the same students can yield different results. New York State students, for instance, score lower on NAEP tests than they do on state tests. U.S. students also do not fare well against students from other advanced countries on the international tests.

Acknowledging that its ELA and math tests for grades 3-8 students were not only too easy, but did not reflect what students need to know to succeed in high school and beyond, the State Education Department in 2010 raised the proficiency bar, which caused scores to plummet. In 2011, the State Education Department said that its Regents exam passing score of 65 was too low to qualify students for college-level work.

To address these concerns, the state has embarked on a statewide, four-year process to revise standards and rewrite tests. The state tests will become longer, test more material, have more open-ended questions and require more writing. They will aim to assess not whether students learned test-taking tricks, but whether the students can apply knowledge and explain their answers. By 2014-15 the goal is that our state tests will be able to tell students honestly if they are on track to succeed in college.

At the same time, the state plans to revamp curriculum and train teachers to implement it. It has signed on to a national common core standards effort led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State Schools to create uniform K-12 education standards.

It seems to be dawning on state leaders that, as teachers have warned for years, a test-prep curriculum does not develop academic mastery. And a consensus seems to be forming at the state and national levels that new curriculum and new assessments are the next frontier.

Testing is also discussed in the teacher evaluation and accountability topics in Hot Topics.

Useful Links

Test data

New York City's standardized state test results from 2006 to the present, plus SAT and AP results
The latest NAEP results for NYC and other large urban areas
New York State Regents explain changes to the state tests

Scholarship and criticism

Measuring Up by Daniel Koretz is a highly readable book on education testing.
Educational Testing: A Brief Glossary: This blog post on eduwonkette is a primer on test construction and the difference between criterion-referenced tests and norm-referenced tests.
"Enemy of the Good" in Education Next: Author Donald R. McAdams argues that value-added high-stakes tests, with all their flaws, are an excellent way to hold school districts and their employees accountable for student learning.
"The Concept of Formative Assessment": Carol Boston in Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation gives a primer on the formative (low-stakes) assessments
Transformative Assessment by W. James Popham is a bible of formative assessments.
"In New York City, A Long Wait Ahead to Close the Math Achievement Gap": Jennifer Jennings (as blogger Eduwonkette) used NAEP to look at achievement gaps in the city.
"The International PISA Test": An article by Mark Schneider on the PISA test and TIMSS argues that current international assessments cannot generate a great deal of reliable policy advice.
"Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us": This article by testing expert Daniel Koretz in AFT's American Education critically reviews the value-added model.

Standardized Test Critics

Fair Test
New York Performance Standards Consortium
Time Out from Testing