“Students Get What Flows Downward”: District Leaders’ Rationalizations of the Standardized Testing of Children

What do students stand to gain from high-stakes, standardized testing? We consider answers to this question from the perspective of urban district leaders tasked with designing and overseeing the implementation of standardized testing policies. Results revealed variation in leaders’ framing of and rationale for standardized testing with respect to benefits for students and whether/why students should strive for high test scores. Implications for both approaches to standardized testing and broader improvement initiatives are discussed.     

State Assessment Policies,Practices, and Language Minority Students

State assessment policies define the context for local school districts to identify language minority students who need language-based instructional services and to follow the performance of these students in school. This survey of state education agencies (SEAs) in the eastern half of the United States addressed two questions: What assessment policies are states using to identify and reclassify English language learning (ELL) students from special language programs, and what assessment policies are states using to determine the participation of ELL students in statewide testing programs? Results indicated that fewer than one third of the SEAs required assessment for identification or placement of ELL students through state law or policy, leaving most of the states without procedures that would prevent mislabeling and inaccurate student counts. Almost half the states required a minimum score on a statewide test for students to be eligible for a high school diploma, yet less than one fifth of these had some kind of alternative plan for students not obtaining the minimum score. Recommendations offered to states for designing accurate and equitable assessment practices for language minority students are (a) use uniform requirements for identification and reclassification, (b) monitor district-level assessment practices, (c) select ELL students for inclusion in statewide testing based on English language proficiency, (d) use statewide testing programs to monitor the progress of former ELL students, (e) use multiple assessment procedures in statewide testing, and (f) provide alternative procedures for ELL students to meet stare test requirements for high school graduation.     

The Demand for Standardized Student Testing

What does the American public think about standardized testing? D o Americans test too much? Does the public believe that tests are a good way to learn about how well students are doing and to encourage them to d o better? What d o students, teachers, and administrators think?     

Comparisons between talent search students qualifying via scores on standardized tests and via parent nomination

This study examined differences between students who qualified for talent search testing via scores on standardized tests and via parent nomination in their performances on the SAT or ACT and some demographic characteristics. Overall, the standardized testing group earned higher scores on the off‐level tests than the parent nominated group. Asian students used parent nomination more than standardized tests for talent search testing, and Hispanic/Latino students in the parent nominated group but not in the standardized testing group were among the top performers on the off‐level tests. Parent nomination as a feasible alternative to standardized achievement tests is suggested for talented students who are not native English speakers or would not be identified as gifted using traditional qualification methods.     

Student Achievement for Whom? High-performing and Still ‘Playing the Game,’ the Meaning of School Achievement Among High Achieving African American Students

The preponderance of the research on African American students has generally focused on issues of school failure and underperformance. While the literature on high achieving Black students is sparse, very little is known about these students’ school experiences and the meanings that they assign to achievement. Using student-based inquiry research, this study investigates the meaning of school achievement among high-performing African Americans. The findings reveal that the students were not convinced that standardized examinations, and to a lesser extent course grades, were accurate or valid measures of achievement. Thus, they challenged the dominant achievement paradigm and created their own sense of school success, which included social dimensions such as community involvement and personal growth and development. Although collectively the students concluded that standardized exams and grades were not achievement or accurate measures of achievement, yet they clearly knew how to ‘play the game.’ While students must meet the norms of standardized measures and end-of-course testing related to the Common Core, schools can respond to their diverse assessment needs by incorporating broader measures that include, but are not limited to standardized tests. The findings of this study and student recommendations have great implications for teacher education and student assessment.     

A longitudinal study of math achievement gains for initially low achieving students

Standardized testing has been implemented in most school districts as part of an effort to improve student achievement in mathematics, reading, science, and English. There have been heated debates as to the effects of these improvement efforts on student achievement. In studying these issues, it is important to examine longitudinal growth patterns for individuals. In most of the studies, however, there is a lack of empirical data at the individual student level or the studies are cross-sectional in nature. The current study attempts to examine growth patterns of student math achievement between 1997 and 2000 and individual differences in growth patterns. MDS exploratory growth modeling was used in the investigation based on data from 716 students in a single school district. Individual differences in growth rates were found. Disadvantaged (limited English proficiency and special education) students had lower initial achievement levels and did not seem to be catching up to other students because their average growth rates were similar to those of other students. These results are discussed in light of recent school reform efforts and the goal of closing achievement gaps.     

Computing laboratory classes as language learning environments

Whereas most research on computer-assisted language learning (CALL) tends to rely heavily on the assessment of academic achievement and language learning outcomes, this study involved an evaluation of the psychosocial learning environment in computing laboratories. The What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) and Attitude to Computers and Computing Courses (ACCC) questionnaires were administered to 152 university students undertaking 1-year compulsory education courses in English at the Centre for Foreign Languages (YADIM) at Çukurova University in Turkey. Analysis of data illuminated students’ perceptions of the computer laboratory class as a language learning environment and paved the way for further learning environment studies involving both students and teachers.     

Reading,Writing, and English Course Pathways when Developmental Education is Optional: Course Enrollment and Success for Underprepared First-time-in-College Students

Academic underpreparedness is an issue for many first-time-in-college students, particularly those entering community colleges. Whereas many underprepared students enroll in developmental education, research has indicated that traditional remediation may not increase students’ chances for success. Therefore, states and colleges have begun to implement new course placement strategies to increase the accuracy of initial course placement and new instructional approaches to better serve their developmental students. Specifically, in 2013, the state of Florida passed Senate Bill 1720 which redesigned developmental coursework and placement policies across the Florida College System. The reform lifted developmental education placement exam testing and course enrollment requirements for certain exempt students, irrespective of prior academic preparation or achievement. The current study focuses on these exempt students—those who had the option to bypass developmental education—who were also underprepared, and their initial course selection and subsequent success in their gateway (introductory college-level) English course. Using statewide student-level data and logistic regression techniques, the results indicated that level of preparation was related to students’ course enrollment and gateway English course success. Students slightly underprepared in reading or writing were more likely than severely underprepared students to enroll in the gateway English class, relative to a developmental reading or writing course. In reading and writing, slightly underprepared students were more likely to pass English, relative to severely underprepared students. The authors consider the findings in light of recent national changes to developmental education and offer recommendations for policy and practice.     

Effects of year-round schooling on disadvantaged students and the distribution of standardized test performance

Using detailed longitudinal data for the state of California, this paper estimates the effect of year-round school calendars on nationally standardized test performance of traditionally disadvantaged students. The student subgroups studied in this paper are: low socioeconomic status, limited English proficiency, Hispanic and Latino, and African American students. I find significant negative effects of multi-track year-round calendars on academic achievement for all subgroups examined, with only the limited English proficiency student subgroup producing unreliable estimates. Negative and significant results for another type of year-round calendar, single-track, are also found for the full sample of students and low socioeconomic status students.     

‘New Labour,Old School Tie’: What Is Education For?

The Labour Party has been in power for the past 13 years in the UK. What is its legacy in education? What have been the salient aspects of its policy interventions, and what impact have these policies had on the practice of English teachers? With its assumption of a straightforward correlation between education and economic development, New Labour’s education policy needs to be seen primarily as a failure of politics – an abandonment of any commitment to social justice in pursuit of a standards agenda that reduces teachers to a condition of mere compliance and education to a set of commodities.     

Neoliberalism, Social Darwinism, and Consumerism Masquerading as School Reform

Education reform policies harvested from neoliberalism, social Darwinism, consumerism, and free-market ideologies have begun to replace the pragmatic progressivism of the pre-World War II era. In this article, I use three federal and state education reform policies and programs—No Child Left Behind Act, Common Core State Standards Initiative, and national standardized testing—as examples of market-oriented ideologies embedded in the reforms. Further, I rely on Critical Social Theory, following Freire, as a framework to examine how the education policies and programs intersect to potentially impede access to quality education opportunities for children from impoverished backgrounds. I use Freire’s conception of Critical Social Theory because of his focus on how education should be used as a transformational mechanism to improve lives rather than a tool to train and inculcate children to imitate and be subservient to the dominant culture. I argue that some federal education policies enacted since 2002 provide examples of the confluence of ideologies that are creating a new meritocracy-based system. The meritocracy-based system will disproportionately penalize poorer students who have less access to out of school experiences that prepare them for formal schooling. Based on punishment triggers embedded in state and federal education policies, a cycle of educational austerity ensues when a student does not achieve a mandatory achievement benchmark. The cycle of austerity can doom some students to under-achievement in the short term and to becoming under-educated in the long term.     

Educators' Perceptions of NRT Misuse

What has been the impact of high stakes achievement testing on curriculum and testing practice? How serious is the problem of cheating on Standardized achievement tests? What steps can we take to improve the validity of test-based information for a variety of educational purposes?     

高校教学理念的更新探索

更新教学理念对提高高校教学质量非常重要。分析了传统教学理念的弊端, 论述了新的教学观中如何看待教学过程中教师的角色、教师与学生的关系, 以及教与学的关系; 如何看待教材与科学知识、教学过程与结果等问题.     

Curriculum crisis: The challenge of the '80s

Developmental remediation programs designed to raise achievement levels of underprepared students have proliferated in the past decade. Despite the fact that these programs employ a variety of teaching strategies, a substantial subgroup of developmental students are unsuccessful in current remediation programs. They need a different curricular approach. As the number of applicants declines and the demand for generating credit hours continues, the question is shifting from “Should less capable students be allowed to attend college?” to “What curriculum should be provided for these students?” The challenge for the '80s is to expand developmental education to include vocational education and post-secondary specialized education.     

Undergraduate students’ attitudes towards mistakes in learning and academic achievement

The objective of the present study was to better understand a relatively under-researched topic, namely, undergraduate students’ attitudes towards mistakes and how their attitudes relate to academic achievement. A series of online surveys were administered to a sample of 207 first- and second-year undergraduate students. Using structural equational modelling, a hypothesised model was proposed to evaluate the following four research questions: (1) What is the effect of students’ trust in their instructor on students’ achievement goals? (2) What is the relationship between students’ achievement goals and their attitudes towards mistakes? (3) Is students’ attitudinal behaviour towards mistakes predictive of their perception of feedback? (4) Is students’ openness to discussing mistakes (ODM) and attitudinal behaviours predictive of their academic achievement? Both direct and indirect effects were found. Direct effects indicated that students’ trust in their instructor predicted achievement goals, students’ achievement goals differentially predicted attitudes towards mistakes, students’ ODM predicted perceptions of feedback, and students’ attitudinal behaviours predicted academic achievement. Students’ trust in their instructor and achievement goals had indirect effects on students’ achievement.     

National Testing or Political Testing: I s There a Difference?

Are two national reports on standardized testing realistic or simplistic? What is the difference between “political” testing and conventional testing? What are some likely consequences of politicizing school testing?     

The impact of high-stakes testing on student proficiency in low-stakes subjects: Evidence from Florida's elementary science exam

An important criticism of high-stakes testing policies – policies that reward or sanction schools based on their students’ performance on standardized tests – is that they provide schools with an incentive to focus on those subjects that play a role in the accountability system while decreasing attention to those subjects that are not part of the program. This paper utilizes a regression discontinuity design to evaluate the impact of Florida's high-stakes testing policy on student proficiency in the low-stakes subject of science. We confirm prior results that students in schools facing more immediate sanctions under the policy made substantial gains in the high-stakes subjects of math and reading. Contrary to the crowding-out hypothesis, we find that students in these schools made substantial achievement gains in the low-stakes subject of science as well.     

A promising science and literacy instructional model with Hispanic fifth grade students

Abstract

This study evaluated the Science and Literacy Instructional Model aimed at helping primarily Hispanic bilingual/English Learners (ELs) and economically disadvantaged fifth grade students with science achievement as measured by high-stakes standardized science achievement scores. The model combined purposeful planning, innovative academic vocabulary instruction, and a Lesson Design Lab. Difference-in proportions tests were used to determine if students at two school campuses showed positive achievement gains on a state science test. This study found statistically significant results with medium to large effect sizes at both campuses. Findings contribute to much needed research, practice, and policy in the area of effective models to assist both teachers and students in an era of high-stakes testing.     

The consequences of “school improvement”: Examining the association between two standardized assessments measuring school improvement and student science achievement

For more than half a century concerns about the ability of American students to compete in a global workplace focused policymakers' attention on improving school performance generally, and student achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) specifically. In its most recent form—No Child Left Behind—there is evidence this focus led to a repurposing of instructional time to dedicate more attention to tested subjects. While this meant a narrowing of the curriculum to focus on English and mathematics at the elementary level, the effects on high school curricula have been less clear and generally absent from the research literature. In this study, we sought to explore the relationship between school improvement efforts and student achievement in science and thus explore the intersection of school reform and STEM policies. We used school‐level data on state standardized test scores in English and math to identify schools as either improving or declining over three consecutive years. We then compared the science achievement of students from these schools as measured by the ACT Science exams. Our findings from three consecutive cohorts, including thousands of high school students who attended 12th grade in 2008, 2009, and 2010 indicate that students attending improving schools identified by state administered standardized tests generally performed no better on a widely administered college entrance exam with tests in science, math and English. In 2010, students from schools identified as improving in English scored nearly one‐half of a point lower than their peers from declining schools on both the ACT Science and Math exams. We discuss various interpretations and implications of these results and suggest areas for future research. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 804–830, 2012