'Study' of AIMS-like tests shows a low regard for children

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@uclink4.berkeley.edu>]

Op-ed piece against the Amreiner/Berlin study by Lisa Graham Keegan in the 
Az Republic.  She bases her argument on the fact that they didn't include 
the views of pro-testers, revealing her misunderstanding of the difference 
between research and journalism (or spin-doctoring).  Notice the conclusion 
in which she advocates a narrowed curriculum for poor children (who can't 
read or do math)...

'Study' of AIMS-like tests shows a low regard for children

By Lisa Graham Keegan
My turn
Jan. 3, 2003
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/opinions/articles/0103keegan03.html
So I am rudely awakened from my Christmas reveries with a headline warning, 
"AIMS-like tests challenged. . . . May hurt education."

Ah, back to work.

The article that appeared in The Republic on Sunday discusses a report 
commissioned and paid for by a group of National Education Association 
organizations called the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and 
Practice. This is a union group with a weighty name but an open and ongoing 
opposition to the use of statewide tests for accountability purposes.

The authors and publishers of this study are neither unbiased nor 
unpredictable in this latest negative review of testing impact, and that 
fact must be weighed when judging the quality of their work. As should 
other details:

Fact: The "independent review" of this study was completed by individuals 
whose own research consistently finds dangers in testing. Not one testing 
advocate was included in the commissioned "review" of this study. Plenty of 
scholars did independently review the methodology of this study in its 
earlier version (March 2002) and dismissed the study as unscholarly.

Fact: The preliminary version of this study was published in material 
edited by Gene Glass, whose opposition to AIMS-like testing is fervent, and 
a reflection of his view that any state-assigned curriculum is overly rigid 
and unnecessarily narrows the curriculum.

A basic assertion advanced by the authors of this study is that instruction 
based on preparation for a state examination dangerously narrows the 
curriculum away from the acquisition of more important knowledge. "More 
important knowledge" is defined only as "understanding general problem 
solving," an alarming example of the need to clearly define academic goals. 
More interesting is the irony that the evidence for their flimsy assertions 
can be found in, well, other test scores! Imagine.

For me, the most fatiguing fact of this "study" and its prominent exposure 
is the constant reminder that so many of education industry leaders simply 
do not share the majority belief that all children can and should acquire a 
well-defined and foundational set of academic skills.

It is well-documented that in this country, wealth is a painfully sure 
predictor of demonstrated academic ability. It is decidedly not a predictor 
of potential, else we should all simply assign our children to the future 
we assume money can buy them.

But a belief in education as the great equalizer requires us to demand that 
all students have the opportunity to learn, at a minimum, those skills that 
will allow them choices at the end of high school, and to change what we 
are doing if we find that students are not getting what they need.

The crux, the core and the heart of the standards and testing movement is 
that all children must have the opportunity to learn at least the 
foundational set of skills that will give them choices after high school.

Will state standards and testing narrow the curriculum? I desperately hope 
so. For in schools where children can neither read nor solve simple math 
problems, that is the specific goal of the enterprise: to focus the 
curriculum so that foundational and requisite skills can be universally 
acquired and built upon, so that the vast majority of our children will be 
prepared to decide their own future instead of having a narrowed set of 
choices thrust upon them.

That is nothing to warn the public about, it is something to strive for.

Lisa Graham Keegan, CEO of the Education Leaders Council in Washington, 
D.C., is a former Arizona superintendent of public instruction.





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