Standardized testing and public policy
Standardized testing is used as a public policy strategy to establish stronger accountability measures for public education. While the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) has served as an educational barometer for some thirty years by administering standardized tests on a regular basis to random schools throughout the United States, efforts over the last decade at the state and federal levels have mandated annual standardized test administration for all public schools across the country.
The idea behind the standardized testing policy movement is that testing is the first step to improving schools, teaching practice, and educational methods through data collection. Proponents argue that the data generated by the standardized tests act like a 'report card' for the community, demonstrating how well local schools are performing. Critics of the movement, however, point to various discrepancies that result from current state standardized testing practices, including problems with test validity and reliability and false correlations (see Simpson's paradox).
Critics charge that standardized tests became a mandatory curriculum placed into schools without public debate and without any accountability measures of its own. Many feel this ignores basic democratic principles in that control of schools' curricula is removed from local school boards, which are the nominal curricular authority in the U.S. While some maintain that it would be preferable to simply introduce mandatory national curricula, others feel that state mandated standardized testing should stop altogether in order that schools can focus their efforts on instructing their students as they see fit.
Critics also charge that standardized tests encourage "teaching to the test" at the expense of creativity and in-depth coverage of subjects not on the test. Multiple choice tests are criticized for failing to assess skills such as writing. Furthermore, student's success is being tracked to a teacher's relative performance, making teacher advancement contingent upon a teacher's success with a student's academic performance. Ethical and economical questions arise for teachers when faced with clearly underperforming or underskilled students and a standardized test.
=Standardized Testing in Tennesse
In the early 1990's, William Sanders, an agricultural economist in Tennessee, came up with the simple idea that a school's "value added" is equal to the improvement in test scores for all students who have been in the school for a full year. Norm referenced and criterion referenced tests have "scale scores". These scale scores apply across grade levels enabling the comparison of student test results in different grades. Sanders developed a standard scale score gain for each grade level. This standard thus enabled a true accountability where every school could compete regardless of the socioeconomic strata it served. For the first time, it also enabled accountability for schools serving higher socioeconomic neighborhoods. Rather than the school getting credit for the ability showing up on the fist day of school, it enabled parents to ask whether the school was "adding value" to already "high" test scores.
Some schools in Tennessee gained 140% of the average scale score gain. Other schools gained less than 80% of the average gain.
Sanders maintained that the average scale score gain was not correlated with demographics or income levels of each school. This statement was challenged by outside observers.
Based on 1996 data and then again based on 2002 data, the RAND corporation did a careful ranking of state educational systems performance relative to other states and their improvement relative to other states. In 1996, Tennessee ranked 32 in performance and 34th in improvement. In 2002, Tennessee ranked 34th in performance and 36th in improvement. These rankings create serious questions as the effectiveness of "value added" systems in improving outcomes.
By comparison, Texas, which chose the route of high stakes testing ranked number one in performance and number two in rate of improvement in 1996. In 2002, Texas ranked number one in performance and number three in rate of improvement.
What is the problem in Tennessee?
See also Education, education reform, and school choice, alternative assessment