As I mentioned earlier, I am in Maryland working with some 40 educators
from across Baltimore County. This is one of the states that has had
statewide assessment for ten years. The centerpiece of Maryland's
Education reform efforts of the 1990's, the Maryland School Performance
Assessment Program (MSPAP) is touted as a model for the nation, yet
debate continues to surround the efforts, as reported recently by
reporter Howard Bobit. In response to the state schools Superintendent
Nancy S. Grasmick's request for an external independent review, SRI
International (a California-based research company) released its
findings last month. Calling it an "exemplary state assessment", SRI
said the MSPAP does a good job of testing reading and writing.
Unlike traditional, standardized, multiple-choice exams, the MSPAP tests
aim to measure more than basic reading and math skills. The tests are
not designed to judge the abilities of individual pupils, but to grade
the effectiveness of a school's instruction in six subjects: math,
reading, writing, language, social studies and science. The goal is for
70 percent of pupils to score satisfactory on the exams. That has not
yet been achieved.
Last year a questionable (and less favorable) report from the Abell
Foundation concluded that the tests were an invalid measure. The SRI
report was more positive, but says the exams need some updating and
fine-tuning.
According to one state board member, many parents believe the test to be
culturally biased and noted that the group of recent researchers was not
racially diverse and failed to examine this aspect of the MSPAP
exams.
This is a primary example of what is going on across the country with
statewide testing.
Clearly, this is a phenomenon that is going to be with us. More and
more states are implementing testing requirements tied to funding, other
rewards and sanctions. Most of these are testing 3rd through 10th
graders each Spring and some are implementing required high school exit
exams. Many are tied to state-adopted standards which have been based
on traditional educational techniques and classic literature and social
studies. Just as equity professionals have started to see some minimal
gains with curriculum developers and textbook publishers, these
standards and tests have the potential of setting us back at least 20-30
years. Unfortunately, most of the standards are not being set by a
diverse population of policy and decision makers. Nor are the tests
being designed to reflect the measurement of multiple learning
modalities and styles, which an entire body of recent research suggests
is most effective in a pluralistic student population.
Most of the states who have been on the cutting edge of the reform and
accountability movement are also the states where many of the equity
concerns are beginning to surface. These include, but are not limited
to MA, NC, TX and CA. While some of the state agencies and some of the
test developers have had staff members who are knowledgeable about
gender, cultural, language and class bias, their expertise has not been
reflected in most of the statewide testing and assessment efforts.
One of the ways to counter some of these effects will be for the grass
root responses to get louder about the institutionalized inequities of
traditional sorting and testing. Making people more aware of what we've
learned from the research and history can help. On one hand we worry
about dropout rates, on the other, we reinstate systemic testing
designed to result in greater retention. Research has already proven
that grade retention is the strongest predictor for dropping out of
school. According to an article in the Boston Globe last month, parent
income and education are the best predictors of MCAS (the
Massachusetts') statewide test scores.
At the conclusion of a three-year study that I conducted with 9 clusters
of administrators across the country during the 90's, I asked them to
identify what they perceived to be the most persistent equity-related
issue(s) with which we would deal in this new century. Overwhelmingly,
they identified the lack of diverse perspectives and representation in
curriculum content and materials and the testing and assessment by which
schools would be held accountable. They could not have been more
prophetic.
Dolores A Grayson, Ph.D.
GrayMill
22821 Cove View St.
Canyon Lake, CA 92587
(909) 246-2106
(909) 246-2107 Fax
dgrayson@iinet.com
www.graymill.com
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