Re: CA State results shed new light on wealth vs. poverty deba...

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

As Debby Meier once said, the farce that is "criterion-referenced 
testing," with its arbitrary cut scores, makes one nostalgic for the 
bad old days of norm-referenced tests, when you could count on only 
half the kids failing.
In fact, todays "proficient" scores are set at between 70% and 80%, so 
all the disingenuous nonsense from Spellings about "shouldnt everybody 
be at grade level?" is enraging. If grade level means anything (and it 
doesnt), it means the 50th %ile. Reptiles, all.
Susan

On Saturday, August 18, 2007, at 05:50 PM, Le1212@aol.com wrote:

> The questions about the validity of poverty information is important.  
> I have
> a greater interest in how items are evaluated by CDE and result in a 
> test
> score.
>
> I question the accuracy of this year's test scores.  Each year the 
> state
> changes items and decides if the new items are appropriate to include 
> in that
> year's score.  When I checked two years ago, the number, or 
> percentage, of correct
> answers needed for "proficient" performance varied from subtest to 
> subtest
> and from year to year.
>
> This variability seems to be due to the ratings of items by mysterious 
> forces
> within CDE.  They use various statistical measures to evaluate items.  
> It is
> quite likely that these statistical measures impact how much scores 
> change
> from year to year.  Unless these mysterious forces are put into clear 
> view,
> comparison of scores from year to year is more politic than education. 
>  If they
> truly want teachers to embrace this assessment model, teachers should 
> be allowed
> to see the test's item analysis.
>
> Marc Barlow
>
>
>
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