Weird Op. Ed.

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

Here's a convoluted piece of "reasoning" from big business test prep 
pimps reacting to the Arizona State University studies. Once again, the 
notion that "better testing" is the magic bullet solution.

 THE ALTERNATIVE TO TESTING MONOMANIA IN SCHOOLS
     Houston Chronicle -- January 4, 2002
       by John Katzman and Steven Hodas

Recent attention paid to an April study from respected researchers at 
Arizona State University has highlighted some troubling fallout from the 
seemingly unstoppable movement for annual high-stakes testing of public 
school students. On the one hand, the authors found that the sudden and 
intense focus of teachers and administrators on these tests has failed 
to translate into gains on other standardized assessments such as 
college entrance exams or the National Assessment of Educational 
Progress. At the same time, the researchers documented instances of 
administrators failing to promote "problem" students to grades in which 
they would be tested, encouraging students to drop out rather than sit 
for graduation exams, or simply expelling them prior to an important 
test. Though these practices appear to be isolated, they are 
nevertheless indicative of a profound and unwelcome shift in the values 
and practices of public schooling as the stakes involved in testing grow 
larger.

Yet there are important distinctions to be made between accountability 
and testing as they're practiced today and how they could and should be 
practiced.

As experts in standardized tests (both those used for college entrance 
and for K-12 accountability) we'd be the first to agree that testing as 
currently practiced is often incoherent and deeply flawed. Anxiety on 
the part of educators being held accountable -- fairly or unfairly -- 
for the first time in their careers further magnifies the distortions 
that these tests can have on schools.

No one should be surprised by this: In a high-stakes world you get what 
you measure. If bureaucrats and politicians structure powerful 
incentives for educators such that the only thing that truly matters is 
performance on a single test, then educators will naturally focus on 
that test to the exclusion of all else. If on the other hand, schools 
are also held accountable for outcomes other than test scores (like 
dropout and attendance rates, for example) as they are in Arizona, New 
Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina and Tennessee, you can mitigate the 
testing monomania while deepening the theory and practice of 
accountability. The fact that only five states have thus far been 
thoughtful enough to do so means that there is room for wide 
improvement, not that accountability is anathema to sound educational 
practice.

The problem with the "testing is bad for schools" stance is that it 
seems to suggest that the absence of testing is good for schools. This 
is prima facie a difficult proposition to accept, especially if by 
"good" one means tending to lead to greater public support and funding 
for public schools. It is also difficult to accept that all schools are 
doing an equally good -- or even a minimally acceptable -- job at 
educating the students placed in their charge and that the public has no 
right to know which schools are not, even if at first on the basis of 
flawed and narrow metrics.

It is unfortunate that educators are perceived to be almost universally 
(and often self-servingly) opposed to test-based accountability when in 
fact they have much to offer for the design of the next generation of 
accountability. Neither good nor bad accountability systems are foregone 
conclusions, and work done today by educators, researchers, 
policy-makers and parents will determine which we get. In the world of 
high-stakes testing, the highest stakes are on the creation of 
accountability systems that measure the right things and use those 
measurements in ways that support better teaching and learning.

Katzman is the chief executive officer and founder of The Princeton 
Review, and Hodas is executive vice president of strategic development 
of The Princeton Review.