Recent battles over the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System tests for students prompted GSJ reporter Kristen Cole to seek comment about the issue of student testing from Warren Simmons (below), executive director of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform.
In my view, decisions about student graduation and promotion, and judgments about teacher and school quality should not be based on a single test. A "fair use" of test scores is as a prompt to review other indicators of performance, such as grades, classroom assignments and student work, and to analyze ways to improve performance. Using tests primarily to provide rewards and punishments is shortsighted and harmful.
Should teachers change curriculum to adjust to the tests?
No, teachers should align curricula with state and/or locally developed standards. Adjusting curriculum to fit the test would lead to the narrowing of focus that many critics of testing oppose. Ideally, tests are designed to measure core concepts and skills outlined in a set of standards. They can't measure the full range of students' competencies. Unfortunately, the alignment between the standards and assessments used by many states is weak at best, according to a study by the Council of Basic Education and Achieve, Inc.
Should the country adopt national standards for student testing or should the testing be left up to the states and, if so, how do you compare the outcomes?
Our history of federalism fosters resistance to mandated national standards and testing, particularly when "national" means prescribed by the federal government. It was federalism that defeated a voluntary national test proposed by both the Clinton and Bush administrations. This defeat was fortified by test publishers who stand to lose millions of dollars if a national exam replaces the market provided by 50 states and over 1,500 school districts vying to develop or purchase their own assessments. Nonetheless, states and school districts have moved gradually toward adopting voluntary national standards, like those developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the International Reading Association/National Council of Teachers of English.
If education maintains its current status as a national issue, I think there will be increased pressure for some form of national testing and standards to replace the patchwork of tests and standards that now produce conflicting information.