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Do State Tests Make the Grade?
It’s
hard to overestimate the importance of standardized tests in public schools
today. Grade advancement, high school diplomas, teacher bonuses,
principals’ jobs and school reputations can all hinge on whether a student
picks the right answer.
So
who creates the tests that carry so much weight?
Much
of the work is done by five giants: CTB/McGraw-Hill, Educational Testing
Service, Harcourt Assessment, Pearson Educational Measurement and Riverside
Publishing. Together, the companies own about 90 percent of the
state-testing business, which has become a $1.1 billion industry since
passage of the federal No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. The law, which
took effect in January 2002, requires states to give annual reading and
math tests to third- through eighth-graders, and to test students in those
subjects once again in high school.
Working
with state educators, the big five — or big four, once Pearson’s planned
acquisition of Harcourt takes place — create and score the tests. But the
explosion of testing and changes in the types of tests states administer
have left the companies scrambling to keep up.
Also,
differences in state standards that are used to create the tests and the
reluctance of some states to spend money for high-quality, challenging
tests have caused a great disparity in testing from state to state.
For
example, a look at various fourth-grade reading tests shows wide
differences. Texas’ 2006 reading test is entirely multiple choice. Ohio’s 2005 test includes several short-answer
questions, such as asking for the main conflict in a passage; in another
section, students fill out a cause-and-effect chart for a certain problem. Massachusetts’ 2007 test was arguably the most rigorous:
Students had to answer four long open-response questions.
Some
states have fewer questions that test writing skills. A main reason for
that is money. Gary Cook, Wisconsin’s former testing director, said it
could cost a thousand times more to score an essay question than a
multiple-choice question…
This
article was excerpted from “State of the States 2008,” Stateline.org’s annual report on significant
state policy developments and trends released Jan. 16.
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