Testing Student Learning.pdf

Introduction and

Overview

Williamson M. Evers and Herbert J. Walberg

Schooling is one of the top domestic policy issues of the day, and

testing and the effectiveness of teaching, broadly considered, are

among the top issues in education. Nearly all states have devel-

oped standards and have begun state testing programs in the last

several years. The 2002 federal No Child Left Behind act makes

testing and accountability policies even more crucial because

poorly performing schools may be closed; already many failing

schools must allow and pay for their students to attend successful

schools.

More than ever, parents want to know how their children are

achieving and how their children’s school ranks compared with

others or with standards. Testing and evaluating districts’,

schools’, and staff members’ teaching results are enduring con-

cerns. Today they are particularly timely and are the reasons for

this book.

Purposes of Testing and Public Policy

Of course, tests can serve a variety of purposes. For example,

educators can use them to pinpoint students’ strengths and weak-

nesses to plan curricula and adopt teaching practices tailored to

their needs, both as individuals and groups. State legislators

increasingly want to know how schools rank, and local school

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Testing Student Learning, Evaluating Teaching Effectiveness

boards should be studying the results of their programs, curricu-

lum offerings, and staff efforts. Parents can contribute more to

their children’s learning if they understand their progress, and,

increasingly, they can choose their children’s school partly on the

basis of publicly available school report cards, which reveal, to a

greater or lesser degree, the quality or effectiveness of teaching.

Achievement test scores certainly do not reveal all the impor-

tant outcomes of schooling nor can they form a comprehensive

index of the quality of teaching. Nonetheless, well-designed

commercial and state-developed tests usually provide reliable

indications of the academic knowledge and skills children acquire

largely in school, and no one has shown that these reasonable

goals require sacrificing other objectives, such as character devel-

opment. Even though some education experts and even some

testing experts may disagree, Congress, state legislators, and citi-

zens are increasingly insistent on such objective testing and

accountability for measuring the results of teaching.

Such priorities are matters of public policy to be decided by

citizens and their representatives rather than only by educators

and testing experts on professional and technical grounds—since

their interests may not be identical. The authors of the chapters

in this book unabashedly and critically examine controversial

professional, technical, and public policy issues that may divide

educators and experts from citizens and their representatives.

Setting the Stage

Herbert Walberg begins by showing why citizens and legislators

have become increasingly concerned about American student

achievement and why they increasingly maintain that tests and

standards are necessary. Though the achievement of American

students is comparable with that of students in other countries

when American students begin school, they fall increasingly

behind as they progress through the grades. By the end of high

school, their achievement is near the bottom of advanced coun-

tries, despite American schools’ being close to the top in per-student

Introduction and Overview

spending among economically advanced countries. Walberg

attributes this productivity problem to a lack of school board and

staff accountability—which, in turn, requires systematic testing

and standards. Among the other problems he identifies are defec-

tive tests and standards and the proclivity of educators to promote

and graduate students even when they have not met proficiency

standards. Ending on a positive note, he identifies ways that tests

can be used to help solve America’s achievement crisis.

Oddly, in this period of national crisis, some prominent testing

experts have objected to testing’s having an enlarged role when it

comes to making “high-stakes” decisions about student promo-

tion and graduation and to evaluate the teaching provided by dis-

tricts, schools, and individual staff members. Richard Phelps

describes eight common objections and shows why they are false.

Among the myths he debunks are that learning is narrowed

because teachers concentrate solely on what is tested; that stan-

dardized tests measure only facts; that standardized test are

biased against minorities; and that standardized tests are too

expensive.

Constructive Uses of Tests

This section presents several constructive uses for tests including

(1) diagnosis of children’s learning difficulties and evidence-based

procedures for solving them, (2) the study of curriculum impacts

on specific aspects of achievement, and (3) assessment of teach-

ers’ strengths and weaknesses. First, Barbara Foorman, Jack

Fletcher, and David Francis cite research revealing that a weak

start in reading usually prevents children from catching up with

their peers, then they show how tests can help even in the child’s

earliest years of learning to read. They are careful to point out,

however, that their own research shows assessment of early read-

ing skills is useful only to the extent that teachers understand and

act upon the results. Such assessment can help teachers, parents,

administrators, and policy makers in judging the effectiveness of

programs as children move forward in school.

Testing Student Learning, Evaluating Teaching Effectiveness

Though agreeing that testing of students is critical for educa-

tional reform, Stan Metzenberg takes issue with the validity of

the NAEP Science and Mathematics tests, finding it suspicious

that student performance should correlate strongly with Reading

test scores. He suggests that the learning of mathematics and sci-

ence may depend upon foundational reading skills that are not

supported by hands-on activities and that mathematics and sci-

ence tests that are largely based on constructed-response ques-

tions may fail to serve their intended purposes. Metzenberg also

finds that previous interpreters of TIMSS data are mistaken in

their suggesting that too many topics are covered in the U.S. cur-

ricula. Overall, Metzenberg calls for exercising great caution in

interpreting the results of NAEP Science and Mathematics tests

and in drawing causal conclusions from sloppy educational

research.

Alan Siegel, on the other hand, finds much value in the

TIMSS filming of teaching practices. As part of the TIMSS

achievement survey, researchers filmed eighth-grade mathemat-

ics lessons in Germany, Japan, and the United States. Siegel’s

detailed analyses of the films suggest the reasons for the out-

standing performance of Japanese teachers. Like Metzenberg,

Siegel finds previous assertions about TIMSS mistaken. He con-

cludes, for example, that Japanese teachers actively teach students

rather than letting them discover mathematical ideas on their

own. In fact, Japanese teachers engage in more lecturing and

demonstration than even the most traditional American teachers.

In short, Siegel’s analyses refute the claim of many education the-

orists that student discovery rather than expert teaching primar-

ily determines outstanding performance of Japanese students on

the mathematics tests.

Constructive Tests for Accountability

Essay examinations, live performances, and portfolios of students’

work can provide insights for classroom teachers about what their

students have learned. But should they be used, as many contend,

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