The choice of standardized tests as an historical question

["Sherman Dorn" <sdorn@tempest.coedu.usf.edu>]

My thanks to those who responded yesterday.  Jerry Bracey's observation from
Virginia--

> People drew on their own experience as test takers--the state 
> superintendent suggested that the cut score on the state's 
> new minimum competency test be set at 60 because when he was 
> in school a 60 earned you the lowest passing grade.

--is one of those usually undocumented clues that it *wasn't* deliberately
considered. Darned frustrating for historians, but it's important.  (I think
the best handling of non-evidence on that score was by David Tyack and
Elisabeth Hansot in LEARNING TOGETHER, where they discuss how quiet the
transition to coeducation was.) In this case, the "I was tested, so let's
use that" rationale is an example of how existing policy shapes debate --in
this case, because most adult Americans attended public schools at some
point and have a similar set of experiences that help define in their heads
what a 'real school' is.  The social-science jargon for this, incidentally,
is 'policy feedback,' from Theda Skocpol's 1992 book on the history of
welfare.

And I appreciate being reminded that the rhetoric is not necessarily
synonymous with the bureaucratic mechanisms of regulation and oversight. I
need to check on the history of ESEA. My (unconfirmed) impression is that
the bureaucratic evaluation mechanism existed with ESEA's evaluation
requirement (I think Lagemann talked about this, but I also remember seeing
the Psychological Corporation's name on a bunch of evaluations I read eons
ago) but became more 'focused' on norm-referenced tests with the mid-70s
development of normal-curve equivalents as a quasi-comparative measure.  And
then the 1994 reauthorization ratcheted things up more. (I expect that
George Miller was heavily involved in that part of reauthorization.) But the
relationship between testing and Title I evaluation came long before the
national rhetoric about testing as part of civil rights.

Sherman Dorn
University of South Florida
http://www.coedu.usf.edu/~dorn/
http://www.shermandorn.com