Fwd: Ways to Measure Schools Without High-Stakes Testing

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Excellent article. Doesnt mention the Learning Record, but still. You can thank
him at mathewsj@washpost.com

Susan

  Ways to Measure Schools Without High-Stakes Testing

  By Jay Mathews

  Washington Post Staff Writer

  Monday, March 31, 2008; 11:32 AM

  Who is going to be our next education president? I know, but I'm not telling.
  Most of The Washington Post's political reporters these days are young,
  strong and potentially dangerous. They have warned me about previous attempts
  to tread on their turf. So I am going to confine myself to helpful advice for
  our future chief executive, without revealing that person's name.

  I have gotten some astute assistance in this effort from Sharon L. Nichols,
  an educational psychologist who is an assistant professor at the University
  of Texas at San Antonio, and David C. Berliner, Regents' Professor of
  education at Arizona State University. Their 2007 book "Collateral Damage:
  How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America's Schools" is the latest selection
  to our Better Late Than Never Book Club, this column's way of spotlighting
  good work that I really should have read when it appeared months, sometimes
  years, before.

  Nichols and Berliner attack from all sides the state testing that we use to
  assess schools under the No Child Left Behind law. Their analysis is clear,
  their arguments strong. What particularly impressed me was their willingness
  to suggest viable alternatives to testing as a way for us voters, parents and
  taxpayers to know which of our schools are doing well and which are not, a
  service to which some critics of testing seem to think we are not entitled.

  Here are their four major suggestions, in the order they gave them, with
  their own titles. It is important to read the book to get the analysis in
  depth, but this should whet your appetite. The authors do not see these
  approaches as separate from each other, but as part of a network of
  assessments that would be both deeper and more helpful than the typical
  high-stakes state tests given at the end of a school year:

  1. Formative assessments: Assessment for learning, not assessment of
  learning. Formative assessments are the many tools that teachers use to keep
  track of how their students are doing---start-of-class quizzes, discussion,
  projects, homework, chapter tests. They are different from summative
  assessments, such as final exams or state tests. Nichols and Berliner quote
  British scientist Paul Black's apt definitions: "When the chef tastes the
  soup it is formative assessment; when the customer tastes the soup it is a
  summative assessment." Some of us customers still want to see state test
  results, but Nichols and Berliner cite data suggesting that formative
  assessments, in skilled hands, are more likely to get the achievement gains
  we desire, since in the back-and-forth of examining the results of each small
  formative assessment, a great deal of learning occurs.

  2. An inspectorate. Nichols and Berliner admire the school inspection systems
  used in Australia, England, Holland, Germany, Sweden and a few other
  countries. They describe very detailed and sophisticated visits, interviewing
  both teachers and students and others involved in the education process, to
  see if standards are being maintained and progress made. If this system
  worked, it would have real benefits. But it is terribly expensive---in
  Britain, they can only afford to do each school every six years---and it
  reawakens in me bad memories of the reports issued by regional school
  accreditation committees that operate in many parts of this country. Rarely
  have I seen prose more tortured or less comprehensible. Often such visits
  involve buddy-buddy relationships that teeter on the edge of conflicts of
  interest. So it is a promising idea, but I would have to see it executed
  better than I have seen in the past.

  3. End-of-course examinations. Here, I think they are on to something. They
  propose that high-stakes state tests be junked in favor of local tests
  written by teachers and tied closely to actual courses. They cite as models
  the Standards of Learning tests in Virginia, which I have been watching
  closely for a decade. There are high school SOL tests for algebra, biology,
  American history and several other subjects. The tests and questions were
  designed by Virginia teachers, and are embraced by many critics of No Child
  Left Behind. Nichols and Berliner do not like the fact that the Virginia
  tests are high-stakes--a student has to pass six of them to graduate from
  high school. But you get the idea. I am a little surprised that they did not
  mention Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate as models for this
  approach, since they have the additional merit of a testing standard that
  cannot be corrupted. That standard is based on a result everyone considers
  useful to the students themselves---being able to master introductory college
  material. Another advantage of this approach is that it is less expensive (as
  well as more comprehensible to outsiders) than their other suggestions. Less
  money spent on assessments could mean more money to pay teachers.

  4. Performance tests, including project and portfolio defenses, before
  judges. The authors celebrate here my favorite example of this alternative to
  high-stakes testing, the Central Park East Secondary School created by a
  group of teachers led by the legendary Deborah Meier. High schoolers at CPESS
  were treated like graduate students, working on major papers and other
  projects, and being judged by committees of experts. This is a wonderful
  alternative to state testing, if the teachers and administrators are as good
  as Meier and company. But it can be expensive and leaves us voters and
  taxpayers somewhat out in the cold. We don't have time to sit in on all those
  oral exams.

  All four of these ideas have potential. I think the best choice for critics
  of high-stakes tests is to show us what they've got. Create independent
  schools like CPESS--charters or pilots or privates, whatever---and try out
  some of these alternative assessments. If they work, they will be noticed by
  many, including the next president.
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