March 1999 | Volume 56 | Number 6

Using Standards and Assessments

Measures and Mismeasures

Marge Scherer

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Why Standardized Tests Don't Measure Educational Quality

W. James Popham

Educators are experiencing almost relentless pressure to show their effectiveness. Unfortunately, the chief indicator by which most communities judge a school staff's success is student performance on standardized achievement tests. Most educators do not really understand why a standardized test provides a misleading estimate of a school staff's effectiveness. But in order to move toward appropriate assessments of school quality, they should.

This article discusses several important reasons that standardized achievement tests should not be used to judge the quality of education. The piece includes sample items from standardized achievement tests to illustrate factors that can influence students' scores. The author contends that if educators accept the position that standardized achievement test scores should not be used to measure the quality of schooling, then they must provide other, credible evidence that can be used to ascertain the quality of schooling.

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Realizing the Promise of Standards-Based Education

Mike Schmoker and Robert J. Marzano

Rightly used, standards can promote unprecedented student achievement. But the standards movement has a dark side: It can add to curricular chaos and have a detrimental effect on student performance. In order to realize the potential of standards-based reform, educators must address its pitfalls. Problems include bloated and poorly written state and district standards that almost no one can teach to hope to adequately assess. The authors make the case that, when it comes to standards, quantity does not mean quality.

To create a school infrastructure for a standards-driven school, educators must: 1.) Stay with the standards that are assessed; 2.) Be judicious about adding standards to the list to be taught and assessed; and 3.) Avoid adding more topics than can be taught and assessed reasonably and effectively.

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Keeping It Simple and Deep

Richard Strong, Harvey Silver, Matthew Perini, Basho, Issa and Onitsura

What do haiku, an ancient Japanese form of poetry, have to do with educational reform? Plenty, the authors suggest. Just as haiku are both simple (in form and content) and deep in underlying meaning, so too can educational reforms balance the practicalities of everyday teaching and learning with abstract ideals, goals, and standards. Educators construct simple changes around current teaching practices that respect the resources and cultures of schools. They construct deep changes through a process of examination and reflection that affects the entire faculty. By creating new models that promote individual creativity within a standardized structure, educators can achieve that balance between the ideal and the real—much like the Japanese haiku poets do.

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School Leaders Look at Student Work

Beth I. Graham and Kevin Fahey

Using the Collaborative Assessment Conference model, educators in Danvers, Massachusetts meet monthly to look at student work in an effort to construct a common language, shared meaning, and a collective vision around teaching, learning, and assessment. Initially, a piece of student work is presented to the educators without identifying the student or grade level, the nature of the assignment, or how the piece was assessed in other words, without context. The educators describe what they see and speculate about what the child may have been working on. When the context of the student work is eventually revealed, the group moves to powerful conversations about the implications of their heightened understanding for teaching and learning. The reflective process of collaborative assessment has enabled the educators to truly consider the meaning of teaching, learning, and standards.

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Core Knowledge and Standards: A Conversation with E.D. Hirsch Jr.

John O'Neil

E.D. Hirsch Jr. has been at the forefront of the debate over what students should learn, arguing that all students should learn essential "core knowledge." Hirsch and his colleagues have developed a grade-by grade core knowledge sequence for kindergarten through grade 8; to date, more than 800 schools have adopted a program based on the concept. In this interview, Hirsch discusses why it is so important for teachers to teach core knowledge in common, and he makes a case that this can be done while preserving teachers' ability to meet curricular goals of their own.

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We Need Not Exclude Anyone

Jacqueline Farmer Kearns, Harold L. Kleinert and Sarah Kennedy

Kentucky is taking the lead when it comes to including all students in state and district assessments. Its inclusive assessment and accountability system requires all students to participate either in regular or alternative assessments. Students with mild disabilities participate in the general assessment without any individualized accommodations or with minor testing accommodations. For students with moderate and severe cognitive disabilities, the state has created an alternative assessment—the Alternate Portfolio. The Alternate Portfolio assesses similar academic expectations but allows students with significant disabilities to demonstrate outcomes in different ways.

Educators and parents in Kentucky are seeing the positive impact of their efforts to include all students in assessment. The system encourages students to work together to the greatest extent possible, and for students who need alternate assessments, the Alternate Portfolios allow them to excel in ways that continue to challenge expectations.

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Reforming the Kindergarten Round-Up

Susan Sidney Smith

Kindergarten round-ups are typically spring meetings in which teachers, parents, and future kindergartners get to know one another and prepare for the children's transition from home to formal education. However, many schools have used the round-up as an opportunity to screen for school readiness; teachers recommend some children to attend a developmental kindergarten or to wait another year before coming to school. Research shows that these early school assessments, whether they test for academic ability or social maturity, are generally invalid predictors of future success in school.

Kindergarten round-ups should never be used to separate kindergartners of diverse abilities. Rather, they should serve as a springboard for continued and open communications between parents and teachers; assess students for specific learning impairments that can be corrected before school starts; and allow parents, students, and teachers to share meaningful information about early learning concepts.

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No Shortcuts to Success

Peter R. Berendt and Barry Koski

Faced with low reading scores on a statewide assessment test, the administration and staff at Mamaroneck Avenue School in New York State formed an in-house task force to promote the curricular changes that all agreed were needed. Their approach to the problem was twofold. First, they focused on improving the students' literacy levels by working with small groups of students to reinforce the reading skills and strategies that would help students perform well on the state's cloze reading test. Second, to familiarize students with the test format and to reduce test anxiety, they restructured the administration of the test by giving students a series of practice tests and by placing students of the same ability level in the same room. The morale of the entire school community improved as everyone students, faculty, administrators, and parents worked toward a common goal. Their efforts were repaid as they watched the students' test scores soar.

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The Technology-Reading Connection

Robert Alfaro

In 1994, almost half the schools in the San Antonio Independent School District were classified as low performing. By analyzing student performance, the district recognized that reading instruction in the elementary grades was a major source of difficulty. In response, the district instituted the Balanced Literacy program, which mixes phonics and whole language instruction. Kindergartens in two low-achieving schools and two high achieving schools also participated in a pilot project using the Waterford Early Reading Program, a technology-based instructional program that supports beginning readers. In addition, kindergarten teachers in the low-achieving schools were paired in a buddy system with their peers in the high-achieving schools to foster informal and formal professional development. The results have been impressive. Ninety percent of the Waterford program students achieved reading readiness for the 1st grade.

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Grading in a Standards-Based System

Susan A. Colby

How can educators change their grading system to better implement standards-based education? And what are the advantages of doing so? The author describes a detailed, four-step process that can help teachers transform their grade books to be more standards-based. The advantages of this new system are clear. Not only do teachers know precisely how well students are progressing in relation to each standard, but students also know immediately how they are doing and in what areas they need to improve. The system also helps teachers communicate progress to students, parents, and other educators. With administrators' support, implementing a grading system that is standard-friendly will help teachers make the broader transition to standards-based education.

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Using Assessments to Improve Equity in Mathematics

Karen Cole, Janet Coffey and Shelley Goldman

Classroom assessment should connect students with standards by inviting them into conversations and activities directly related to standards. By making the assessment process open, public, and accessible to all students, teachers can promote equity in learning and catalyze the spread of ideas. Four questions direct the assessment: What are we learning? (Students see the big picture and make connections.) What is quality work? (Students apply external standards and create their own.) To whom do we hold ourselves accountable? (Students have a clear idea of their audience and the beneficiaries of their work.) How do we use assessment tools to learn more? (Students become proficient users of assessment processes and data through group reflection and individual practice.) By focusing on practices, quality, accountability, and evaluation, assessment serves those who are learning, not just those who have achieved that is, it promotes equity.

The activity discussed in the article is the Antarctica Project developed as part of the Middle School Math Through Applications Project (MMAP) by the Institute for Research on Learning with funding by the National Science Foundation.

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A Contract for the High School Classroom

Allison Zmuda and Mary Tomaino

Two teachers who one year struggled to teach an American Studies course transformed their class the following school year by working out a standards-based curriculum. After attending a conference, they reorganized their curriculum to align content and performance standards. The results were inspiring. Students felt respected, accountable, and in control of their work. Consequently, their performance and grades improved. The teachers, too, found that the standards helped sharpen their vision of teaching. They eliminated activities that did not match up with a standard, and they continue to clarify their objectives and goals through performance-based standards.

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If We Build It, Will They Come?

Suzanne Tacheny

Educators promise increased accountability. But building an accountability system is only half the job. Ultimately, accountability is a value; it must be cultivated intentionally throughout an organization. This article explores the factors of school culture that enable accountability to be a successful catalyst for school reform. For example, as a school introduces accountability systems, support of employees must be a common theme. And in schools that have most successfully implemented approaches to accountability, employees also share a common story about why change was necessary and how it is being accomplished.

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Service Learning Makes the Grade

Rich Cairn and Susan Cairn

Connecting service learning to specific standards presents challenges for educators. In Minnesota, teachers and students are pioneering assessments that effectively evaluate performance in light of learning goals. In community service learning courses, educators use a variety of assessment methods to enable students to demonstrate attainment of performance-based standards. Assessments include journal writing, evaluation of performance by service agency supervisors, self-assessment, observation during site visits by the instructor, and research papers. The article includes examples of how teachers are working to more closely align specific course requirements with state standards.

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Eugene's Story: A Case for Caring

Vickie Dodds Urban

A third-year teacher, determined to force her students to meet the classroom standards that she had established, faced a high school sophomore who refused either to behave properly or to learn. His constant testing of the limits of her patience exasperated her. Although she maintained a supportive classroom atmosphere, she believed that she had failed as a teacher to reach or influence this student.

Years later, a chance encounter showed her that both she and the student had succeeded all she needed was a different definition of success. He had stayed in school through her influence and had chosen a career in which the teacher's example of caring, compassion, and respect was an important element. The teacher concluded from her experience that indeed all students can and do learn—they just aren't always learning what schools are testing or they aren't being tested on what they have chosen to learn. Students benefit more from caring, compassionate educators who respect them as individuals than they do from raised standards. Educators should reevaluate their concepts of learning and success and realize that each student must follow his or her own educational path.

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Reflection in an Age of Assessment

Joseph Angaran

A veteran teacher reflects on how standards and assessments have had an impact on his classroom. Is the search for information giving educators more data than they can possibly use? Perhaps teachers should instead be given the opportunity to reflect on test data and use it to change their teaching strategies before they are forced to administer another assessment tool.

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The End of the Never-Ending Line

Steven Levy

Frustrated by the careless quality of his students' work, an elementary school teacher devises a simple yet challenging task to make his students aware of the importance of always striving to do their best: he asks them to draw a straight line. By developing their own rubric to determine the quality of a drawing and by practicing repeatedly, the students begin to develop the habits of mind that will lead to their best work: persistence, reflection, learning from past knowledge, continual improvement, precision, and planning.

Students learn to critique their own work and that of their classmates by using a four-step process: (1) Say something positive. (2) Observe something that can be improved. (3) Be specific. (4) Speak about the work, not about the author.

Once students understand the importance of quality for small tasks, they are capable of applying high standards to everything they do in the classroom.

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Schools for the Visually Disabled: Dinosaurs or Mainstays?

Michael J. Bina

What do schools for the blind offer students in an age that embraces the spirit of inclusion? The author argues that these schools are an integral part of the IDEA's continuum of placements—they complement rather than threaten inclusive public schools. Local directors of education frequently place students in schools for the visually impaired when their local schools cannot offer the support or staff to ensure a high quality education. Rather than isolating students from real world settings, these schools teach students how to adapt to a variety of settings, focusing on blindness-specific skills. Therefore, what is considered by law to be the most restrictive environment may actually be the most productive setting for visually impaired students.

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How Sound Is High/Scope Research?

Siegfried Engelmann

The author presents evidence to support his argument that Lawrence J. Schweinhart and David P. Weikart, in "Why Curriculum Matters in Early Childhood Education" (Educational Leadership, March 1998) and in two additional publications, incorrectly conclude that children who participated in a Direct Instruction preschool program had a significantly higher rate of felony arrests as adults than children who went through the High/Scope or the Nursery School preschool curriculums.

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ASCD Annual Photo Contest

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The 106th Congress: What to Watch

Arnold F. Fege

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Judy Walter

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Joan Montgomery Halford

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