Push For National Testi Resumed

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

Predictably, the same groups that called for a "national school test" 
during the late 1980s under George Herbert Walker Bush are using the 
flaws of NCLB exams (which they, themselves, helped create) to push for 
"national school testing" under George W. Bush.

NATIONAL SCHOOL TESTING URGED
GAPS BETWEEN STATE, FEDERAL ASSESSMENTS FUEL CALL FOR CHANGE
Washington Post -- September 3, 2006
by Jay Mathews

Many states, including Maryland and Virginia, are reporting student 
proficiency rates so much higher than what the most respected national 
measure has found that several influential education experts are calling 
for a move toward a national testing system.

The growing talk of national testing and standards comes in the fifth 
year of the No Child Left Behind era. That federal law sought to hold 
public schools accountable for academic performance but left it up to 
states to design their own assessments. So the definition of proficiency 
-- what it means for a student to perform at grade level -- varies from 
coast to coast.

Maryland recently reported that 82 percent of fourth-graders scored 
proficient or better in reading on the state's test. The latest data 
from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as "the 
nation's report card," show 32 percent of Maryland fourth-graders at or 
above proficiency in reading.

Virginia announced last week that 86 percent of fourth-graders reached 
that level on its reading test, but the NAEP data show 37 percent at or 
above proficiency.

Some experts say it's time to be more clear about how well American 
schoolchildren are doing.

"The more discontented the public is with confusing and dumbed-down 
standards, the more politically feasible it will be to create national 
standards of achievement," said Diane Ravitch, a New York University 
professor who was an assistant U.S. education secretary under President 
George H.W. Bush.

The political obstacles are formidable, including a long tradition of 
local control over public education. But the approaching presidential 
campaign, a pending debate over congressional reauthorization of the No 
Child Left Behind law and the wide gaps between assessments have raised 
hopes among proponents that the issue will gain steam. Some say gradual 
steps toward a national system would be better than none.

A recent study by Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public 
policy at the University of California at Berkeley, found that states 
regularly inflate student achievement. In 12 states studied, the 
percentage of fourth-graders proficient in reading climbed by nearly two 
percentage points a year, on average.

The NAEP (pronounced "Nape") data show a decline on average in the 
percentage who were proficient over the same period, Fuller said.

Another Fuller-led study found only three states -- Massachusetts, 
Missouri and South Carolina -- with proficiency standards that come 
close to NAEP's. (A similar rating by the journal Education Next showed 
that D.C. school standards have been stringent. It showed 14 percent of 
D.C. elementary school children reading proficiently on the D.C. scale 
and 11 percent on NAEP's.)

Unlike state tests, which are used to help rate public schools and 
measure achievement of all students in certain grades, NAEP has a more 
limited mission. It tests selected pools of students in key subject 
areas to produce data on long-term educational trends.

NAEP standards were designed to establish what students ought to know to 
do well in the next grade and beyond, said Mark D. Musick, former 
president of the Southern Regional Education Board, who helped draft 
them. State standards, he said, more typically reflect what teachers say 
are the levels good students reach in their classes.

Although classroom experience varies across the country, Musick said, 
what students should know to be proficient in Algebra I is clear to most 
educators, and a national test would help set that standard.

The argument over national standards splits both major political 
parties. Many Republicans defend each state's right to set its own 
standards, but the Bush administration includes advocates for a stronger 
federal role.

No Child Left Behind, which President Bush signed into law in 2002, 
struck a balance: It required a major expansion of state testing 
programs but left standard-setting authority to the states.

Many Democrats supported President Bill Clinton's effort in the 1990s to 
encourage national standards, which was blocked by a Republican-led 
Congress. Other Democrats, particularly those allied with teachers 
unions, oppose judging schools by standardized tests.

Charles E. Smith, executive director of the National Assessment 
Governing Board, which oversees NAEP, said many state officials tell him 
they are moving toward the national benchmarks.

A senior Maryland education official, for instance, said the state's 
standards are aligned with some of the NAEP benchmarks. Some, he said, 
but not all.

"The gaps will generate differences in performance," said Ronald A. 
Peiffer, Maryland's deputy superintendent for academic policy. "If NAEP 
were the national test to which all states taught and tested, then there 
would be no gaps, and I would expect Maryland students to do much better 
on NAEP."

Last week, the Washington-based Thomas B. Fordham Foundation released a 
report from several experts, including advisers to Republican and 
Democratic administrations, that outlined ways to move toward national 
standards.

First, the federal government could order a new national testing 
program. The report said that surely would raise standards but would be 
unlikely to win congressional approval. Second, Washington could fund an 
expanded, voluntary national testing system. The report said that 
probably would raise standards and could be passed.

Third, states could build on efforts to share test items among 
themselves. That would be less likely to raise standards but politically 
feasible, the report said. Fourth, the federal government could take 
steps to ensure that state standards and test results could be easily 
compared with one another and with NAEP.

The experts in the report include Texas lawyer Sandy Kress and former 
deputy U.S. education secretary Eugene W. Hickok, both key education 
advisers to Bush, as well as Ravitch and former Clinton advisers Michael 
Cohen and Andrew J. Rotherham.

Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Fordham Foundation, a former 
Reagan administration official and one of the architects of the NAEP 
standards in 1990, said creating a national test would be difficult. 
"But I think it's a manageable hurdle, especially with presidential 
leadership," he said.

"There's an assumption around that national standards are political 
suicide even if they make educational sense," Finn said. "We need to 
bust through that."

Musick said he believes the best way to introduce national tests would 
be in a few high school subjects, such as first- and second-year algebra.

Some educators see comparisons with NAEP as unrealistic. Gerald W. 
Bracey, an educational psychologist who writes frequently on testing, 
noted that 1996 NAEP results found only 30 percent of fourth-graders to 
be proficient or better in science, even though an international study 
that year ranked American fourth-graders third in science among 26 nations.

Others want to cut back on standardized testing entirely.

Deborah Meier gained fame for starting schools in low-income areas of 
New York City's Manhattan that had experts rate students by viewing 
their schoolwork and discussing it with them. The schools did not rely 
on standardized tests. Instead of a national test, Meier said, the 
country should adopt "a combination of in-depth local instruments, 
independent review of schools and student work."

She also said there is value in limited testing to sample student progress.

Skeptics of national testing have long noted the influence of politics 
on proficiency standards. Put simply, how many kids will voters allow to 
score below proficiency? Some policymakers are tempted to keep standards 
low so that schools will look successful; others seek to set them high 
to spur schools to improve.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/02/AR2006090201041.html