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Carroll County School Superintendent Stephen Guthrie believes that Maryland State Assessment test results are easy to misinterpret.

Written By Jeffrey Roth, Photos by: Phil Grout

In 2007, two Carroll County fourth-grade teachers resigned after administrators discovered that they had distributed copies of questions from a state test to teachers and students before the exam date. In Baltimore schools, the pressure to raise test scores has resulted in numerous allegations of cheating by teachers.

The number of school administrators and teachers who have been caught cheating on standardized tests is increasing.

In July, according to Robert Schaeffer, media spokesman for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal released a report disclosing that nearly 80 percent of 56 elementary and middle school teachers had cheated on yearly student performance tests.

A recent report by the Fair Test organization noted that significant testing discrepancies were found in several New York schools. In Texas, experts estimate there may have been more than 50,000 cases of cheating. In California, students in 123 public schools were caught cheating on standardized tests. In Baltimore City schools, in 2009 and 2010, investigations revealed that staff members of two elementary schools tampered with test booklets to inflate scores.

Educational experts say increased pressure to score well on standardized tests, which rate student performance in school districts and soon will be used to grade teacher performance, is responsible for what has become a nationwide scandal. Many claim that standardized tests are killing academic excellence.

Schaeffer said cheating is an inevitable consequence of Campbell’s Law. Developed by social scientist Donald Campbell, it states: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”

“The pressure to boost standardized test scores by any means possible,” said Schaeffer, “is becoming a pervasive problem – cheating has been documented in 30 states, including Maryland and Washington, DC.”

Schaeffer said that standardized tests measure only a narrow range of knowledge and skills – one dimension: regurgitating facts; they do not measure critical thinking skills.

Testing is big business. Schaeffer said it is difficult to put a dollar figure on the entire industry. ETS, the Educational Testing Service, which produces and grades the SATs, is one of the largest non-profit test producers, with an reported annual income of a billion dollars.

“There are standardsÉ published by the American Psychological AssociationÉ which state that no test should ever be used as a sole factor in determining achievement,” said Schaeffer. “The research findings and recommendations are routinely ignored by elected officials.”

Numerous studies have shown the tests are not a reliable measure of student achievement. Points are awarded for correct answers, whether or not the answers were based on correct assumptions. Schaeffer said the tests penalize deep thinking students and reward mediocrity. Questions are often ambiguous or incorrect.

Increasingly, attempts are being made to tie test score results to funding and teacher retention, promotion and merit pay, said Schaeffer. Local school boards are “scared that the federal government will take away their funding.”

Carroll County School Superintendent Stephen H. Guthrie said that Maryland State Assessment test results are easy to misinterpret. The district has 12 schools that did not meet adequate yearly progress (AYP) goals, but nine of the schools were placed on local alert status for failing to meet AYP for one year. If the AYP is not met in a second year, the school must institute a formal improvement plan. The problem with score results is that a subgroup of only five students who fail to achieve an acceptable score can bring down the overall ranking of the district.

Guthrie said that standardized tests were adopted during the 1960s to make schools accountable. The problem with that approach is that standardized tests became the sole measurement of a school’s performance, he said.

In the 1980s, Maryland adopted its first statewide assessment. It was composed of four tests. Political pressure during the George W. Bush administration resulted in the passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation. The latest use of standardized testing is to measure teacher performance, which is intended ultimately to be tied to teacher retention, promotion and salary increases, or merit pay.

Beginning this year, a teacher-assessment pilot program is being introduced in seven Maryland school districts,. As part of the Obama Race to the Top (RTTT) initiative, Maryland received $250 million to improve student performance. RTTT requires that schools improve educational instruction through a variety of methodsÉ including putting into effect a “model for preparation, development, retention and evaluation of teachers and principals.” The plan is to apply the program state-wide next year.

“We don’t want to become a system that just tests,” said Betty Weller, vice president of the Maryland State Education Association and co-chair of the Council for Educator Effectiveness. “We believe in multiple measures. We think tests can be used to inform instructionÉ to help teachers improve their craft.”

At this time, the new teacher-assessment program is not meant to be linked to teacher compensation, nor does the association support using it for merit pay, she said.

“I personally would like teachers to understand that it is not a tool we are developing for dismissal, it is a tool designed to help teachers develop,” Weller said. “The concern is that it could be misused or not implemented properly.”

Schools involved in the pilot program are concerned about whether there will be adequate resources, professional development, policies on proven measures and expert advice to do this. Most teachers are not against having tools to become better teachers, Weller said.

“We are looking for the best and most fair way to implement the program,” Weller explained. “We are looking at ways to ensure that there is agreement on ratings between two independent individuals conducting the teacher assessment, as well as reliability on the part of the evaluators, and that all people involved – those who are evaluating and for those who are being evaluated – have the appropriate amount of professional development.”

Pilot districts, Weller said, are still struggling to develop what measures will be employed to evaluate teachers. Being considered for use, he said, are standardized testing results, performance benchmarks on the county level, portfolio use, ways to incorporate self-reflection, observations and performance tasks, to name a few of the considerations.

Unfortunately, adequate funding is not available to put the program into effect. About 50 percent of the evaluation may be based on student growth measures that have yet to be developed. At this time, no oversight process has been developed.

“Other jurisdictions that are expected to do the same thing are receiving much less money than needed over the four years,” Weller said. “There is one county I know of that’s going to need 10 times more money than they are receiving to get their technology up to speed.”

Every state participating in the program is “building the plane while we’re flying it,” Weller said. “My gut tells me that good principals can tell a good teacher. I know it’s not scientific, but they will use their instincts about what teachers do” and then compare that opinion with other indicators.

Principals and vice principals will be tasked with conducting the teacher-assessment evaluations, Weller said. All teachers, whether they teach art, music or math and English, will be evaluated. The plan is to develop training programs for principals to establish uniform assessment measures. In 2014, assessments will change when the Maryland Common Core Standards are modified to conform to the National Common Core Standards.

Maryland State Department of Education media relations director William Reinhard defends the use of standardized testing as a legitimate, accurate and objective tool to measure student performance. The standardized tests employed in Maryland are reviewed extensively before being administered to students.

Are the tests reliable? “Absolutely,” said Reinhard. “We have not had any challenges to the test.”

To graduate from high school in Maryland, students must pass standardized tests in algebra, biology and English. Maryland Standardized Assessments that measure reading and math achievement were introduced to comply with the testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. They are given annually to students in grades 3 through 8.

“The tests are designed to show student improvement,” Reinhard said. “No one here says that one test is the end all, be all. It is used to identify students having problems.”

“Because of our requirements, this particular test is a multiple choice exam, but does not show a lot of thinking patterns,” Reinhard said. “It provides some important information. Can you tell learning styles or student ability based on one test? No, it is just one measure.”

Teacher assessment is coming, Reinhard said. The state requires that student growth be one factor considered in evaluating teacher performance.

“It is being implemented with a no-fault provision É none of this will be used for evaluation yet; we want to see how it works,” Reinhard said. “In addition to considering how much education and how many years of service teachers have, we think we should look at how well a teacher performs in the classroom.”

In late May, a report of the National Research Council, an arm of the National Science Academies, concluded that test-based incentive programs have not consistently raised student achievement. The report examines evidence on incentive programs, which impose sanctions or offer rewards for students, teachers or schools on the basis of students’ test performance.

School-level incentives – like those of No Child Left Behind – produce some of the larger effects among the programs studied, but the gains are concentrated in elementary grade mathematics and are small in comparison with the improvements the nation hopes to achieve, the report says.

Evidence also suggests that high school exit exam programs, currently in use in many states, decrease the rate of high school graduation without increasing student achievement,” the report concludes.

Attaching incentives to test scores can encourage teachers to focus narrowly on the material being tested, which results in “teaching to the test”, the report says. Student knowledge of subject matter on the test may increase, while their understanding of the untested portion may remain the same or decrease. There is also a danger that test scores “may give an inflated picture of what students actually know with respect to the full range of content standards.”

Guthrie summed up the problem: As long as politicians push for school accountability, pressure to cheat, lower academic standards and teach to the test will increase. Intelligence, creativity, critical thinking are extremely hard to define and nearly impossible to measure objectively. Students are gifted in myriad ways: some in math, some in English, some in sports, some in music, some in art, etc. There is no reliable, all-encompassing testing tool. Each student needs to be evaluated individually, using a combination of measures.

For more information about testing, visit: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, www.fairtest.org; Carroll County Public Schools, www.carrollk12.org; the Maryland State Education Association, www.marylandeducators.org; the Maryland State Department of Education, www.marylandpublicschools.org; the National Research Council report, www.nationalacademies.org. Also, “The Tyranny of Testing”, by Banesh Hoffman, 1964; “The Myth of Measurability”, edited by Paul L. Houts, 1977.

Who’s For Standardized Testing?

Standardized tests continue to be used to measure students’ academic performance.

With high stakes, schools across the country have found ways to manipulate students’ scores in an attempt to stave off criticism from state and local officials.

The purpose, use and quality of test result data is open to interpretation. Test makers admit the test is just one of a number of assessments that should be used to determine student performance. Schools spend large amounts of money and time in attempts to raise student test scores.

Despite numerous reports that question the quality and value of tests, test makers respond by quoting evidence that indicates that the tests are objective and the results are reliable.

Robert Schaeffer, media spokesman for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing says research into standardized testing has been overwhelmingly negative about the quality, reliability of the results and accuracy of the tests. The test makers cite statistics and research to deflect criticism. They say the tests are reliable, valid and accurate. What is misunderstood by the public, they say, is that the definition of reliability, validity, etc., when used by test makers, differs greatly from generally accepted meanings.

Reliability, for example, when used by test makers, refers to how well the test results correlate when students take a similar test, Schaeffer said.

Validity refers to the practice of having the tests examined by experts from various specialties, who pronounce the tests “valid.” Comparing test results with grades in specific course areas is another method used to measure validity.

Schaeffer said that certain test questions are frequently ambiguous or wrong. Standardized testing, he said, measures how well students take tests, but are not a reliable measure of student competencies or achievement. – J.B.R.

The Origins Of Standardized Testing

IQ tests, often referred to as intelligence quotient tests, are the forerunners of today’s academic standardized or “norm reference” tests. They were first used during World War I as a means of assigning recruits to military jobs. Unfortunately, the IQ test was also employed as a justification to prevent “undesirable” racial and ethnic groups from emigrating to the U.S., and by the Nazi regime as scientific proof of the inferiority of Jews and non-Aryan races, according to Robert Schaeffer, media spokesman of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing.

Confusion about what the tests actually measure prompted members of the psychological community in 1962 to suggest changing the name from “Intelligence Quotient” to “Inquination Quotient.” The term inquination being“ that quality, attribute, capability or potentiality that is measured on an IQ test in relation to the individual’s age,” according to The Tyranny of Testing, by Banesh Hoffman, 1964.

Research has consistently debunked the claim that IQ tests accurately measure intelligence, but schools continue to use them as a primary factor to determine if particular students are eligible to enroll in Advance Placement courses, said Schaeffer. – J.B.R.