High stakes tests

1
High stakes tests

• Does testing really contribute to students
  learning and academic achievement?

2
A brief history

• Tests used for discriminatory purposes
• Sputnik!
• Minimum competency testing
• A Nation at Risk
• High stakes tests
• The Texas miracle
• No Child Left Behind

3
In support of high-stakes tests

• Student and teachers need tests
• Teachers need to be motivated
• Students work harder and learn more
• Students motivated to do their best!
• Scoring well self-esteem
• Teachers use test results to improve teaching
• Teachers use test results to diagnose learning
  problems

4
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle

• The more important that any quantitative social
  indicator becomes in social decision-making, the
  more likely it will be to distort and corrupt the
  social process it is intended to monitor

5
Current practices

• School and district report cards
• Administrators pay linked to performance
• Teachers salary and tenure linked to performance
• Test scores used to award individual scholarships
  to students

6
High school graduation exams

• more common in states that allocate less money
  per pupil as compared to the nation
• more likely in states with centralized state
  governments
• more likely in highly populated and fast-growing
  states
• most likely in the SW and the South
• more likely in states with higher percentages of
  African Americans and Hispanics

7
Amrein Berliner

• Is there evidence of student learning, beyond the
  training that prepared them for the tests they
  take, in those states that depend on high-stakes
  tests to improve student achievement?

8
Measures used to assess students learning
transfer

• the ACT, administered by the American College
  Testing program
• the SAT, the Scholastic Achievement Test,
  administered by College Board
• the NAEP, the National Assessment of Educational
  Progress (NCES)
• the AP (Advanced Placement) examination,
  administered by College Board. 

9
Independent variable implementation of high
stakes testing.Dependent variables ACT, SAT,
NAEP, and AP scores before/after implementation
of high-stakes testing policy.
10
Results

• ACT short-term
• ACT long-term
• ACT overall
• SAT short-term
• SAT long-term
• SAT overall

• 16, -10, NE3
• 10, -19, NE2
• 6, -12
• 17, -13, NE1
• 15, -16
• 8, -10

11
Results

• NAEP Gr4 math (92-96)
• NAEP Gr4 math (96-00)
• NAEP overall
• AP

• 6, -7, NE2
• 6, -5, NE3
• 8, -6, NE2
• 11, -7

12
There is no reliable evidence of high-stakes high
school graduation exams improving the academic
performance of students !