Re: What are we testing

[MONICALUCIDO@comcast.net]

(I wasn't sure if your question was rhetorical but...) The test questions are standardized at the ITEM level, with the intention of getting a reliable set of scores to create a bell shape curve---EVEN on the CST's. There is not a goal of seeing what a child knows because the testers goal is to make sure the test remains numerically reliable. Their focus is not seeing what has been learned. It is to SEPARATE and make SURE the children's scores STAY statistically separated. This is why most schools cannot become "proficient" ( at approx. the 70% percentile no less!) at 100% capacity: the test is designed to make sure that 50% of the kids are below and 50% are above level. When too many kids start doing well, guess what? A new, re-calibrated version---VOILA!-- is introduced as the NEW and IMPROVED test. What a bunch of crap.

Joe Lucido

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: George Sheridan <learn@jps.net> 

> During the California Mathematics Standards Test (part of STAR), my 
> tiniest second grader raised her hand. 
> 
> To avoid having mathematics test scores influenced by reading 
> ability, students are given some visual cues plus an oral direction 
> like, "Tell how much money this is." They work in 8.5" by 11" test 
> booklets, with as few as one or two of this kind of problem on the 
> page. So there's plenty of room to show full-size images of dollar 
> bills and coins. But for some reason, each year the state gives us 
> pictures of dollar bills that are about one fourth the size of 
> Monopoly money, and dimes about one centimeter in diameter. 
> 
> My little angel asked me what coin was pictured on the page. Of 
> course I was forbidden to tell her. She elaborated on her dilemma: 
> the coin looked something like a quarter, so she had reached in her 
> pocket and pulled out a quarter to compare. She rotated the real coin 
> so that the head of George Washington was tipped at the exact angle 
> of the head illustrated in her test booklet. She noticed a difference 
> between the coins, however. Above Washington's head on her real 
> quarter were the words, "United States of America." The one pictured 
> on the test had the word "Liberty." That difference, plus the 
> discrepancy in size, led her to believe that the coin pictured could 
> not be a quarter. 
> 
> Following test protocol, I said something like "Just do the best you 
> can," and walked away. Pretty soon, her hand was up again. On a 
> subsequent problem, she had noted that the picture of a nickel was 
> even smaller than the picture of a quarter. She wanted me to know she 
> had figured out that the coin she had been puzzling over must have 
> been a quarter. 
> 
> I think she got both problems right. But how many other students were 
> thrown off by the size difference, or the fact that the quarter 
> pictured was an old style no longer being minted? The testing 
> contractor would report that they do not meet the second grade 
> content standard 5.1 for mathematics: "Solve problems using 
> combinations of coins and bills." In reality, some of these students 
> have no difficulty with coins and bills, but have a problem with 
> smaller-than-life-size pictures. 
> 
> Every year, the STAR test includes this same stumbling block in all 
> the problems where students are required to know the value of coins. Why? 
> 
> 
> George Sheridan 
>