Interview With Monty Neill

[Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>]

In this interview, Dr. Monty Neill, Executive Director of FairTest,  
begins by discussing the recent flap over the SAT. According to this  
NY Times report from 3/10/06, "The mistakes, which the company,  
Pearson Educational Measurement, acknowledged yesterday, raised fresh  
questions about the reliability of the kinds of high-stakes tests  
that increasingly dominate education at all levels. Neither Pearson,  
which handles state testing across the country, nor the College Board  
detected the scoring problems until two students came forward with  
complaints."

I asked Dr. Neill why, despite all the evidence that standardized  
tests are flawed, we still rely on them so heavily.

He replied, "Certainly some people believe there’s a general  
mystification of the role of numbers, that numbers somehow mean more  
than the data that backs them up, what goes into the numbers, which  
of course cannot be true. So if what goes into the numbers is flawed,  
the numbers are flawed. But they have this veneer of science and  
technical accuracy that is often very incorrect and misplaced. The  
test makers have sold a bill of goods that tests help produce a level  
the playing field. But . . . for students with disabilities, whose  
first language isn’t English, for African-Americans, Latinos, these  
tests have a harmful effect on their capacity to compete fairly, as  
it does poor people in general who . . . can’t afford all the  
coaching programs."

He added, "This old story has been used to argue that by holding  
everybody to the same standard, we will assist people who have been  
denied a high-quality education. That argument fails because it  
requires a little more than standardized tests to produce equity.  
Equity begins with equitable access to things that kids need and  
that’s clearly not being provided. . .You can’t begin to pretend  
you’re going to get equity in one thing when the rest of society is  
so drastically inequitable."

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Posted by Peter Campbell to Transform Education at 6/06/2006 12:19:00 PM