Testing, Teaching, and Learning A Guide for States and School Districts (1999) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 7-14
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From page 7... ...
From its inception, Title I required the use of"appropriate objective measures of educational achievement" in order to ensure that the program was achieving its goal of reducing the achievement gap between low-income and higher-income students. In carrying out this requirement, states and school districts, for the most part, used standardized norm-referenced tests to measure the achievement of eligible studentsboth to determine eligibility and to measure gains.
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From page 8... ...
And, because Title I was intended as a compensatory education program, the tests usually measured basic skills only, to provide information on how students participating in the program fared on such tasks. The Advisory Commission found, however, that the reliance on norm-referenced tests of basic skills to produce national data on student achievement encouraged schools and teachers to narrow the curriculum to the material tested and to "spend undue time teaching test-taking skills or low-level basic skills, rather than challenging content" (p.
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From page 9... ...
At that time, as state testing mandates increased and testing became more prevalent and more prominent in schools, critics became more vocal. Like the critics who focused specifically on Title I testing, including the Advisory Commission cited above, the testing critics charged that the growing use of testing with high stakes attached narrowed the curriculum and encouraged schools to emphasize lowlevel skills and knowledge at the expense of more challenging abilities.
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From page 10... ...
Some critics, contending that the law has failed in its attempt to raise the academic performance of poor children, have argued that the federal government should scrap most of its rules and send money to states with few strings attached, while holding states accountable for results (Finn et al., 1999; Ravitch, 1999~. Others maintain that under Title I the federal government has been too lax and has allowed states to support reforms that were ineffective or even harmful; they argue that Title I funds should be directed at efforts that have been shown to improve schooling for disadvantaged children (Orfield, 1999~.
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From page 11... ...
First, the committee agreed that the purpose of assessment and accountability is to contribute to and support high levels of student learning. We recognized that there are many ways to respond to the law's requirements, and some evidence suggests that at least some states fell well short of the law's goals even as they complied with its mandates (Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights, 1998~.Yet, in the committee's view, the potential educational power of assessment and accountability far outweighs the bureaucratic purposes of such instruments, particularly for those who have been historically poorly served by the education NTRODUCTION 11
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From page 12... ...
Although the role of professional development was not formally part of the committee's charge, the committee found it impossible to discuss assessment without addressing the role of enhancing the knowledge and skills of teachers. High student performance depends on high-quality instruction, and building the capacity of teachers and administrators is at least as much a necessary condition of educational improvement as establishing standards or putting in place accountability mechanisms.
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From page 13... ...
Moreover, we recognize that building effective education improvement systems is hard work, particularly in the charged political environments in which states and school districts operate. We would never presume that policy makers or administrators could simply implement complex systems with a wave of the hand, much less carry through with the even harder work of building the capacity of schools to educate all students to high levels.
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From page 14... ...
In Chapter 6, we examine ways to measure adequate progress of schools toward standards, and in Chapter 7 we discuss accountability.
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