Parent Power!
Helping You Make Sense of Schooling Today

This is a test?

Most standardized tests suffer the "Lake Wobegon" effect where everyone is told he is above average. But when compared to results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) - the nation's most valid barometer of student achievement - a far different picture of student achievement emerges: For example, while 88% of Wisconsin students meet their state's reading standard, only 35% of fourth graders are proficient on NAEP. South Carolina reports that 82% of its kids are doing fine, but only 20% meet NAEP's reading standard. In Louisiana 80% of the 7th-graders passed the state test in math, but only 10% performed well on NAEP. In Oklahoma, there was a 50-point gap between the pass rates on the state and national standards.

States like Virginia are tackling the problem by creating their own, criterion-referenced tests. With one year under their belts, students in 3rd, 5th and 8th grades showed increases ranging from 3 % to 18% in math, English, history, science, and computer technology.

Testing is an important part of understanding a child's progress in any given subject or area. The exercise of testing should serve as a measurement for school, teacher and child. While children (and some parents) may grumble, tests do serve an important role. But what do all the tests mean for how the school delivers on its goals and how the children fare?

          The answer is not as simple as you may think. First you not only have to consider what kind of test is being administered but its purpose as well. This helps you to determine what it actually tells you about student learning.

          The most popular kind of test and the most comparable across district and state lines is the standardized test. The five major norm-referenced tests used throughout the country to measure essential basic skills are:

1. Stanford Assessment Test - 9th Version (SAT9)

2. Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS)

3. California Test of Basic Skills (CTBS)

4. California Achievement Test (CAT)

5. Terra Nova

          These tests are typically multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank examinations with a specific time limit and objective scoring techniques, leaving nothing up to chance or opinion. They're inexpensive for schools to use and they offer a quick and fairly reliable snapshot of how both the school and child perform on basic skills as compared to other schools and students nationwide.

          One problem with norm-referenced tests, according to standards expert Susan Pimental, is they are limited in assessing the extent to which a student meets the standard or falls short. These tests are not aligned to any particular set of standards and scores reveal only how a student is ranked in relation to the performance of other students. Scoring at the 70th percentile does not mean that the student answered 70 percent of the questions correctly. Rather it means he or she is doing better than 70 percent of those tested as set by a national norming group.

          Criterion referenced tests, sometimes called standards-referenced or proficiency tests, on the other hand, are aligned to particular standards and designed to measure how much of the content - item by item - a student has actually learned.

          Norm referenced tests are prepared by the nation's biggest textbook publishers and that makes comparing the effectiveness of schools and districts possible. However it also means that they are unlikely to have relevance to what some children learn in schools where the curriculum is heavily focused on a set of standards or core curriculum.

          "States and districts should offer a mix of tests (norm referenced and standards-referenced) without over-testing children," Pimental says.

          Norm referenced tests can be helpful in identifying the now-persistent practice of grade inflation, which has become "a given" in today's schools, according to Donald B. Crawford, Ph.D assistant professor of special education at Western Washington University.

          Students bringing home straight "A's" who then score poorly on standardized tests alert the parents to this challenge quickly, allowing them to seek a remedy. And poor scores in early grade tests should act as an alarm bell for parents to get help. On the other hand, schools tend to use standardized tests to demonstrate success, when in actuality, success may have more to do with the pool of students than the school's programs. If however, traditionally disadvantaged children are scoring above similar children in other areas, that is probably a sign that the school is doing something very right for these kids. And progress can only really be seen over a few years, as even improvement in one or two skills can shift one's ranking among their peers.

          Because some school officials and lawmakers use standardized tests to set policy, it's important to understand what they mean and to work towards bringing about more knowledge-specific or content-based assessments. You will have more confidence in your child's test scores if you know in advance from your school what your child is expected to know and be able to do every year. More and more districts have published standards of learning. Ask for them.

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