Re: Weird Op. Ed.

["gerald w. bracey" <gbracey@erols.com>]

Why are these guys publishing in the Houston Chronicle?  Or do you suppose
they blanketed papers and HC picked it up?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Schaeffer" <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>
To: "ARN Main List" <arn-l@interversity.org>; "ARN state"
<ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 9:29 AM
Subject: [arn-l] Weird Op. Ed.


> 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.
>
>
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