High-stakes tests earn 'F' in survey

[Gloria Pipkin <gpipkin@I-1.NET>]

http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/0620testing20.html

High-stakes tests earn 'F' in survey

Arizona Republic
Gannett News Service
Jun. 20, 2000


WASHINGTON - The public lacks confidence in the high-stakes tests
increasingly used by schools, according to a survey released Monday by the
American Association of School Administrators.

''Educating students for success in today's society cannot be measured by
one test alone,'' said Paul Houston, executive director of the group. ''Only
on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? can people rise to the top by rote
memorization and answers to multiple-choice questions.''

The survey shows significant unease with the widely used tool of the school
reform movement.

Among those surveyed, 63 percent said a student's progress for a school year
cannot be measured by a single test.

''I'm a pollster, and very rarely do you have 63 percent disagreeing with
something,'' said Jennifer Laszlo-Mizrahi, who conducted the poll. ''That's
an overwhelming 'F' for high stakes testing.''

Asked to list effective school reforms, parents chose, in order, removing
disruptive students, using up-to-date texts, requiring parental involvement,
higher teacher standards, increased technology and limiting class size.
Standardized tests ranked far down the list.

The poll relied on focus groups and a poll of 750 public school parents,
with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Nearly half the states use standardized tests with high stakes consequences,
such as holding a child back a year. Among school reformers, the tests are
seen as accountability needed to ensure that children are actually learning
what they are taught.

Giving the poll extra clout is the fact it comes from the group representing
school administrators - a group that has been supportive of most of the
school reform agenda.

Although most politicians support linking tests to consequences, there is
legislation in Congress that would prevent schools from taking any actions
based on a single test.

''We're holding children as young as 8 back a grade depending on the score
of a single test,'' said Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., the Senate sponsor.

''Punishing a student is really an inappropriate reaction,'' said Rep.
Robert Scott, D-Va., who is sponsoring the bill in the House. ''We know we
have to improve our schools. Just testing students doesn't make any
improvements.''

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