Re: The choice of standardized tests as an historical question

["Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org>]

I would argue that the 1994 reathorization of ESEA did not ratchet things up more; and Miller was about 3rd or 4th ranked Dem on the House committee at that time (Kennedy led the Senate commttee) - Dems controlled both houses.

The 1994 dropped the NRT requirement (hence fall-spring, use of NCEs etc - BTW, NCEs were to my understanding concocted so all the test companies could battle for a share of the market that had exploded in the wake of the requirement to test all kids in Title I - many schools proceded to test all kids period; this was followed by the use of MCTs mainly in the south).

1994 brought the switch from NRTs to supposedly 'standards-based' tests (hence, CRTs - in theory at least since most such tests use NRT technology). The idea was instead of a teaching-impervious set of multiple-choice items, use potentially a range of assessment tools (hence potentially reintroducing what Jerry says was eliminated decades ago) based on what the citizenry in a state via some public mechanism concluded that children should learn. Instead of testing every kid every year, states could test once each in grades 3-5, 6-9 and 10-12. Reading and math remained the two testing-required subjects. States were also to begin setting expectations and penalties, tho 1994 did not specify what such gains were to be, nor the penalties - that was left up to the states. The other big change was a requirement to either test all kids or if testing only Title I kids, test them with an instrument that reflected what all kids should learn (that is, not on a lesser curriculum). 

In theory, then states could have designed substantially different assessment systems. Nebraska did, Maine did sort of and partially (keeps working on it in some manner), and few others did. States also tended to not expect much gain and did not enforce much for sanctions - with some exceptions among the states. 

NCLB of course added expectations all experts agree cannot be met, more than doubled the required testing, added science testing, required disaggregated data, and imposed stiff sanctions that either have nothing to do with improving schools or at a minimum had no evidence of effectiveness (tho has now produced some effort at figuring out interventions that might actually help -- see article by Daniel Duke in June 06 Phi Delta Kappan).

Monty
Monty Neill, Ed.D.
Executive Director
FairTest
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