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Millennial Debate

Standardized Testing Debate

Background

Definition

History

Opposition to Testing

Frequency of Tests

Norm-Referenced v. Criterion Referenced Tests

“Reliability” and “Validity”

“Standardized Test” Defined

High Stakes Testing Defined

Categories of tests

Assessment vs. Testing

Standardized Testing Good – Educational Crisis

US Educational System Not Competitive

Black-White Achievement Gap

Standardized Testing Good -- General

Framework – Should Reduce, Not Eliminate, Standardized Tests

Generally Valuable

No Alternative to Testing

Con Evidence is Biased

Common Core Tests Good

Valuable to Develop Test Taking Skills

Improvements in Education

Academic Achievement

Minority and Disadvantaged Students

Gifted Enrollment

Communicating Assessment of Academic Skills

A2: Kids Spend Too Much Time on Testing

A2: Unfair Way to Assess Teachers

A2: Doesn’t Benefit Specific Kids

A2: Tests Measure Poorly

A2: Tests Don’t Measure What Students Need to Learn

A2: Teachers Oppose

A2: Rote Learning/Spitting Back Information

A2: Bad to Punish a Student for One Test Score

A2: Culltural and Racial Bias in Testing Subject Matter

A2: Teaching to the Test

A2: Special Needs Students

A2: Teachers Lack Knowledge of Testing

A2: Data Quality Inadequate

A2: Poor Test Design

A2: Teachers Cheat

A2: Too Much Pressure on Kids

A2: Too Much Instructional Time is Wasted on Testing

A2: Narrows Curriculum to Math and Science

A2: Accountability Provisions Bad

A2: Generally Not Fair

A2: Puts Pressure on Teachers

A2: National Curriculum Bad

A2: Corporate Control of Education Bad

A2: Surveillance Bad

Keep Tests/Use them Better

Teacher Education/Training/Teacher Performance

Education Impacts

Common Core Good

Common Core Improves Education

Common Core Improves Education – Math & Science

Common Core Improves Educational Competitiveness

Data Collection

Diverse, Local Standards Bad

Improved Education/Education Reform

A2: Reduced Creative Thinking

Con Evidence is Flawed

We Should Improve it, Not Abolish It

Standardized Testing Bad -- General

Won’t Solve the Root Cause

Private Industry

Urban Over-Testing

Undermines Education – Time Trade-Off

Undermines Creativity

Alienates Students

Alienates Kids

Hurts Lower-Skilled Students

Hurts Minorities

Hurts Poor & Minorities

Student Morale

Time Trades-Off

Cost Trades-Off with Instructional Resources

Commodification

Implementation Problems

Tests Don’t Measure Key Skills

Teaching to the Test

Poor Design

Narrow Education/Undermines Curriculum Development

Teacher Morale

Cheating

A2: Need a Way to Assess Teachers

A2: Job Skills

A2: Improves Student Performance

A2: Need Standardized Graduation Requirements

A2: Increases Technology Use

A2: Need to Improve Cognitive Ability

A2: Need to Assess Students to Improve Education

A2: Test Scores Increase Achievement

A2: Test Scores Needed to Improve Schools for Minorities

A2: Need to Test Kids to Tailor Education

A2: Not That Much Time Spent on Testing

Critique of “Achievement Gap”

Achievement Focus Bad

Standardized Testing Bad – No Education Crisis

A2: Educational Crisis

A2: International Competitiveness

A2: Schools are Failing

A2: Minority Students Failing

A2: US Students Failing on International, Standardized Tests

A2: 2010 PISA

A2: 2012 TIMMS

Standardized Tests Bad -- Privatization

Privatization

Corporate Control Bad

Data Driven Approaches Destroy Value to Life

Standardized Tests Bad -- Common Core Testing Bad

Surveillance

Closing Public Schools

Critical Thinking

A2: Common Core Testing Supports Standards That Improve Education

A2: Common Core Improves Teacher Quality

A2: Common Core Doesn't Mandate a Curriculum

A2: Common Core Strengthens US Competitiveness

A2: Need Common Core to Solve Income Inequality

Common Core Language Standards Bad

Corporate Control Impact Backlines

Related – College Standardized Admissions Tests

Required Standardized Admissions Tests for College Good

Should Improve, Not Abandon, Admissions Tests

Should Develop Effective Standardized Admissions Tests

Should Develop Alternatives – Murray

Affluence Admission Benefit Now

SAT A Counterweight to Affluence Admissions

Many Types of College/University Standardized Admission Tests

Standardized College Admissions Tests Useful

Should Use Standardize Subject Tests

SAT II and AP Tests Useful in Admissions

ACT Plausible Standardized Test Alternative

AP & IB Tests

A2: Subject Tests Don’t Measure Skills

A2: Wealthy Can Afford Test Prep

Required Standardized Admissions Tests Bad

SAT Is a Standardized Test

Story of David and Michael

SAT Test Background

“Test Optional” Background

SAT Has a Substantial SES Bias

SAT Has a Cultural Bias

Racial Bias

SAT Tests a Limited Set of Skills

A2: Foreign Students Provide Diversity

A2: No SAT Requirement Lowers Quality of the Incoming Class

A2: Helps Kids Who Don’t Go to Elite Prep Schools

A2: Use ACT/ACT Good

A2: Use SAT Subject Tests

A2: Use K-12 Standardized Tests

Test Optional Boosts Diversity

Grades Best Predictor of College Success

A2: Getting Rid of SAT Shifts to Achievement Testing

A2: New (2005) SAT is Better

A2: Should Use AP Tests

Background

Definition

Wikipedia, no date, DOA: 11-1-15

A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures, and interpretations are consistent[1] and are administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner.[2]

Any test in which the same test is given in the same manner to all test takers is a standardized test. Standardized tests do not need to be high-stakes tests, time-limited tests, or multiple-choice tests. The opposite of standardized testing is non-standardized testing, in which either significantly different tests are given to different test takers, or the same test is assigned under significantly different conditions (e.g., one group is permitted far less time to complete the test than the next group) or evaluated differently (e.g., the same answer is counted right for one student, but wrong for another student)

History

No Child Left Behind (NCLB) started the movement toward standardized testing

Quinn Mulholland, May 14, 2015, Harvard Politics, The Case Against Standardized Testing, DOA: 10-25-15

President George W. Bush’s signing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 ushered in the current era of high-stakes testing. The law required states to administer math and reading tests every year to students from third to eighth grade and imposed increasingly harsh punishments on schools that failed to make “adequate yearly progress” on these tests. By 2011, according to the Center on Education Policy, almost half of schools nationwide were labeled as “failing” because they could not make adequate yearly progress.

Opposition to Testing

Groups opposed to standardized testing

Grover J. "Russ" Whitehurst, Martin R. West, Matthew M. Chingos and Mark Dynarski, January 8, 2015, The Case for Annual Testing, DOA: 10-25-15

That said, this is a perilous moment for reauthorization because of the backlash against standards, testing, and accountability. The effort to put “the standardized testing machine in reverse,” in the words of New York mayor Bill de Blasio, has diverse bastions of support. These include: conservatives who object to the seemingly ever expanding reach of the federal government into K-12 public education; concerned parents of children in well-regarded, often suburban schools, who believe that test-prep activities have narrowed the curriculum and put undesirable pressure on their children; progressives such as de Blasio, who see the challenges of public education as best addressed by more funding for schools and broad efforts to eliminate poverty rather than by holding schools or teachers accountable for results; and, teacher unions that are doing what unions are expected to do by trying to protect the less effective of their members from the consequences that follow from exposing their ineptitude in the classroom.

Many parents opting out of standardized testing

Kelly Wallace, April 24, 2015, CNN, “Parents All over US ‘opting out’ of standardized student testing, DOA: 10-25-15

Since one of my daughters is taking the public school state tests for the first time this year, I thought I paid fairly close attention to the debate surrounding the tests themselves, and the concern that schools are too focused on "teaching to the test."

I heard that some parents might engage in a form of civil disobedience and "opt out" -- they would refuse to let their children take the tests. I thought only a few were making that stand.

But then I learned from a friend whose daughter attends a Long Island school that only two kids in her third-grade class took the test. That means 20 or more of her classmates didn't.

I saw local media reports about similar stories in other schools on Long Island, in New York City and its surrounding areas, and in upstate New York.

Something bigger is going on, I thought.

Just how many students opt out this year won't officially be known until this summer when the state education department releases test scores. But, according to one of the groups leading the opt-out movement here -- the New York State Allies for Public Education -- 156,000 students refused to take this week's English exam, and that's with just from 50% of the districts reporting their numbers.

With approximately 1.1 million students eligible to take the tests in grades 3-8 in New York, that means at least 14% of students are projected to sit out this year. According to the state education department, last year about 49,000 (4%) didn't have a known valid reason for not taking the English test and 67,000 (6%) didn't take the math exam.

"I'm ecstatic," said Bianca Tanis, a co-founder of the New York opt-out group. "I guess I'm not really surprised, because I think we could all feel this coming."

Political support to reduce testing

Edward Graham, a student at American University in Washington, D.C., is an intern with The Durango Herald, October 31, 2015, Durango Herald, Bennet Supports Limits on Standardized Tests, DOA: 10-31-15

A new push by the Obama Administration is asking state lawmakers to limit the number of required standardized tests in order to better maximize student learning. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who previously served as the superintendent of Denver Public Schools, agrees that school testing has gotten out of hand, and he says states need to better differentiate between necessary assessments and ones that serve no educational purpose.

“We need to reduce the amount of unnecessary testing,” Bennet said Monday. “The tests that help us know how our schools and teachers are doing to help kids grow, and the tests that are used for teaching and learning purposes serve an important purpose. If done right, they can provide information we need to ensure our kids are receiving a great education. States and districts should limit the amount of testing for accountability purposes and ensure instruction time is spent teaching our kids.”

President Barack Obama appeared in a White House Facebook video on Saturday calling for an end to “unnecessary testing” and framing the push as a way of providing more free time at school for students to pursue more rigorous learning opportunities.

Frequency of Tests

Students take an average of 8 standardized tests per year and more than 100 during their K-12 years

Council of Great City Schools, Student Testing in America’s Great City Schools: An Inventory and Preliminary Analysis, October 2015, DOA: 10-31-15

Based on the Council’s survey of member districts, its analysis of district testing calendars, interviews, and its review and analysis of federal, state, and locally mandated assessments, this study found—

In the 2014-15 school year, 401 unique tests were administered across subjects in the 66 Great City School systems.

Students in the 66 districts were required to take an average of 112.3 tests between pre-K and grade 12. (This number does not include optional tests, diagnostic tests for students with disabilities or English learners, school-developed or required tests, or teacher designed or developed tests.)

The average student in these districts will typically take about eight standardized tests per year, e.g., two NCLB tests (reading and math), and three formative exams in two subjects per year.

In the 2014-15 school year, students in the 66 urban school districts sat for tests more than 6,570 times. Some of these tests are administered to fulfill federal requirements under No Child Left Behind, NCLB waivers, or Race to the Top (RTT), while many others originate at the state and local levels. Others were optional

Many students take 20 standardized assessments per year

Melissa Lazarin, October 2014, Center for American Progress, DOA: 10-26-15

Students are tested as frequently as twice per month and an average of onceper month. Our analysis found that students take as many as 20 standardizedassessments per year and an average of 10 tests in grades 3-8. The regularitywith which testing occurs, especially in these grades, may be causing students,families, and educators to feel burdened by testing

Students also take state and district level standardized tests

Melissa Lazarin, October 2014, Center for American Progress, DOA: 10-26-15

Despite the perception that federally mandated state testing

is the root of the issue, districts require more tests than states.

State tests alone are not to blame for testing fatigue. District-level tests play a role

too. Students across all grade spans take more district-required exams than state

tests. Students in K-2 are tested three times as much on district exams as state

exams, and high school students are tested twice as much on district exams. But

even students in grades that must be assessed per No Child Left Behind took

between 1.6 and 1.7 times more district-level exams than state exams.

Most of the district-level tests in use were interim benchmark exams that are taken

two to four times throughout the year. Other district-wide exams included diagnostic

tests and end-of-course exams for students taking certain required courses.

Students are tested an average of once per month, some twice per month

Melissa Lazarin, October 2014, Center for American Progress, DOA: 10-26-15

Students are tested as frequently as twice per month

and an average of once per month.

Testing can occur very frequently for some students. Students in grades in which

federal law requires annual testing—grades 3-8—take the most tests. This means

about 10 tests, on average, throughout the year. But in the Jefferson County school

district in Kentucky, which includes Louisville, students in grades 6-8 were tested

approximately 20 times throughout the year. Sixteen of these tests were districtlevel

assessments. In the Sarasota County, Florida, school district, middle school

students were tested 14 times on state and district tests throughout the year. These

interruptions in instruction may likely be contributing to public sentiment regarding

students being overtested.

Students in grades K-2 and 9-12, who do not take or are less frequently tested

using federally required state exams, take the fewest number of tests—approximately

six tests in a year.

Norm-Referenced v. Criterion Referenced Tests

Norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests

Stephen Sireci, psychometrician, University of Amherst, 2005, Defending Standardized Testing, Kindle Edition, page number at the end of card

What is the Difference Between Norm-Referenced and Criterion-Referenced Tests? The terms norm-referenced and criterion-referenced criterion-referenced are technical and represent one reason why people accuse psychometricians of speaking in an incomprehensible language. These terms refer to very different ways in which meaning is attached to test scores. That is, they refer to different ways in which the tests are referenced to something. In norm-referenced testing, a person's test score is compared to (referenced to) the performance of other people who took the same test. These other people are the "norm group," which typically refers to a carefully selected sample of students who previously took the test. There are several types of norm groups, the most common being national, local, and state. National norms refer to a nationally representative sample of test takers. This sample of students is carefully selected to represent key demographic characteristics of our nation. Local norms usually refer to the entire population of students within a school district. For example, local norms on an eighth-grade test would be used to compare one eighth-grade student's score with all other eighth-grade students in the district who took the same test. State norms are used in the same manner, with students' scores being referenced to all other students across the state who took the same test. (2005-03-23). Defending Standardized Testing (Kindle Locations 3250-3253). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition…… A serious limitation of norm-referenced scores is that in many cases it is less important to know how well a student did relative to others, than it is to know what a student has or has not learned. For this reason, criterion-referenced tests are much more popular today. Rather than reference a student's test score to the performance of other students, criterion-referenced tests compare students' test performance with carefully defined standards of expected performance. Examples of criterion-referenced scores are classifications such as pass, fail, needs improvement, basic, proficient, and advanced. (2005-03-23). Defending Standardized Testing (Kindle Locations 3266-3270). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.