Best Practices for State Assessment Systems, Part I Summary of a Workshop (2010) / Chapter Skim
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4 Political Experiences and Considerations
4 Political Experiences and Considerations
Pages 41-48
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From page 41... ...
The foundation for MSPAP was a Commission on School Performance established in 1987 by then governor William Schaeffer, which outlined ambi tious goals for public education and recommended the establishment of content standards that would focus on higher order thinking skills. The commission also explicitly recommended that the state adopt an assessment that would not 1
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From page 42... ...
Because the Maryland governor appoints members of the state board of education, who, in turn, appoint the superintendent of public instruction, the result was "a team work ing together on education reform." This team was responding to shifting expec tations for education nationally, as well as a sense that state and district policy makers and the public were demanding assurances of the benefits of their investment in education. Ferrara recalled that the initial implementation went fairly smoothly, owing in part to concerted efforts by the state superintendent and others to communicate clearly with the districts about the goals for the program and how it would work and to solicit their input.
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From page 43... ...
, passed in 1990 (which had broad bipartisan and public support) , was one of the first state education reform bills and included innova tive features, such as a substantial tax increase to fund reform; a restructuring of education governance; the allocation of 10 paid professional development days per year for teachers; and a revamped standards, assessment, and accountability system.
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From page 44... ...
With experience, test developers also gradually moved from holistic scoring of portfolios to analytic scoring in order to gain more usable information from the results. The state also faced logistical challenges, for example, with field testing and providing results in time for accountability requirements.
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From page 45... ...
Second, in 2009 the state legislature, facing severe budget constraints, voted to make the expenditure of state funds on human scoring of assessments illegal.2 More recently, the state has contemplated signing on to the "common core" standards and is monitoring other changes that may become necessary as a result of the Race to the Top Initiative or reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Mattson reflected on the process so far, noting that despite the examples 1The technical manual and other information about the program are available at http://education.
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From page 46... ...
The flexibility that has also been a feature of the MCA since the beginning -- the state assessment staff's commitment to working with and learning from all of the constituencies concerned with the results -- should allow them to success fully adapt to future challenges, Mattson said. POLICy IMPLICATIONS The three state examples, suggested discussant Lorraine McDonnell, high light the familiar tension between the "missionaries" who play the important role of seeking ways to improve the status quo and those who raise the some times troublesome questions about whether a proposed solution addresses the right problem, whether the expected benefits will outweigh the costs, and whether the innovation can be feasibly implemented.
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From page 47... ...
Yet unless teachers are provided with substantial opportunities to learn about the deeper curricular implications of innovative assessments and to reshape their instruction in light of that knowl edge, the result of any high-stakes assessment is likely to be more superficial test preparation, or what McDonnell called "rubric-driven instruction." This collision between policy pressure for ambitious improvements in achievement and the weak capability of schools and systems to respond was an enduring dilemma during the first wave of innovation, in the 1990s, and McDonnell believes that it has not been resolved. Another lesson is that policy makers and test designers need to understand the likely tradeoffs associated with different types of assessments and then decide which goals they want to advance and which ones they are willing to forgo or minimize.
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From page 48... ...
In several states testing experts acquiesced to political pressure to move quickly in a direction that the testing technology could not sustain. Programs that have implemented innovative features gradually, without dismantling the existing system, have had more flexibility to adapt and learn from experience.
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