HIGH-STAKES ASSESSMENTS
Inroduction
High stakes testing in schools had its origin in the 1980s with the publication of A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) issued by the Reagan administration. The report stated that public schools in the United States lacked rigorous standards and were failing. It also attacked the social promotion of students. The Business Roundtable (BRT) initiated a campaign to return curriculum to the so-called basics (such as phonics), require schools to meet high standards, and be held accountable. These reforms were to be guided by experts from the business world who understood the economy (Johnson, Johnson, Farenga, & Ness, 2008).
High-Stakes Assessments
High stakes testing is so named because the test outcomes are used to make important, often life-altering decisions. Such decisions may include the denial of a high school diploma, the repetition of a grade, the labeling of students and schools in pejorative ways, the withholding of funding, and even the closing of a school. Students who may do well in school all year but fail a high stakes test may be required to attend summer school and take the test again or spend another year in the same grade.
While high-stakes tests come in many forms and may be used for a wide variety of purposes, the following provide a brief overview of a few representative applications of high-stakes testing:
Students: Test results may be used to determine whether students advance to the next grade level or whether they receive a diploma. For example, a growing number of states require students to pass a reading test to advance from third grade to fourth grade, while others require students to pass a test to graduate from high school.
Educators: Test results may be used in the job-performance evaluations of teachers or to determine professional compensation. For example, in recent years more school reformers, elected officials, and policy makers have been calling for teacher pay (including bonuses), as well as hiring, firing, and tenure decisions, to be partly based on student test scores.
Schools: Tests results may be used to trigger penalties for schools, including negative public ratings, the replacement of staff members, or even closure. For example, some federal and state policies require that test results be used to impose a variety of consequences, such as firing or transferring some or all of a school’s administrators and faculty, or forcing a school to pay for additional services and transportation costs for students. In addition, standardized-test scores are also increasingly being used, along with other measures, in various state and independent efforts to assign A–F letter grades to schools.
Negative Sides of High-Stakes Assessments
IDEA is opposed to high-stakes standardized testing and the use of standardized testing as the main -- or only -- factor for making large decisions such as student graduation and assessment, teacher assessment, or assessment of an entire school. As one of the most discussed topics in the education debate, standardized testing is a hot topic in research and analysis, and manyorganizations and educators have published on the subject.
Narrowing of the curriculum:
Schools and teachers increasingly feel the need to narrow the curriculum so that students do well on the tests, pushing out non-tested subjects including science, social studies, and the arts.
Corruption:
The use of standardized high-stakes tests leads to cheating, corruption, and gaming of the system, as reported all over the nation.
Unjust and inequitable: The tests hurt low-income youth and youth of color to a far greater extent, as these youth are more likely to be held back or pushed out of schools for having lower scores. Schools with higher percentages of students of color have also been found to have greater narrowing of curriculum, more scripted curriculum, and more focus on rote skills instead of creative higher-order thinking.
Teaching to the test: The high-stakes nature of the tests leads schools and teachers to push out creativity and individualized learning and focus a great deal on test prep.
Not measuring what counts: High-stakes standardized testing focuses on a multiple-choice approach that ignores other qualities and skills that we want young people to develop. It also excludes other approaches to assessing learning including portfolios, exhibitions, and student projects.
Reducing motivation of teachers and students: Rather than increasing enthusiasm and motivation, high-stakes and standardized tests drive teachers out of teaching and turn students off from learning.
High-Stakes Testing in Kazakhstan
In Kazakhstan exam issues are getting worse year by year. It used to be only grade 9 and grade 11that hadto take exams when they graduated from school. In the present days even to get to kindergarten students need to take a test. New models of education require students to take tests every year starting from grade 5. If students fail their tests it turns into a big problem for them. For example in public schools if students fail their tests they will stay in the same grade level next year. In Nazarbaev Intellectual Schools which are providing international standard of education, students need to pass to enroll in these schools and take an exam at the end of the year, if they will fail they cannot stay in these schools. This is a very stressful situation for everybody. The teachers in NIS schools are very focused on preparing students for tests and not are really teaching and passing knowledge so students will learn and enjoy. I think assessment should be for learning not learning for assessment, but unfortunately in the present days the whole education system in Kazakhstan is based on high-stakes tests. Universities have the same system as well. To enroll in university, students need to pass an entry exam. Each university has their own score for passing. This is a really bad situation especially for those who are graduating from high school, because they need to take an exit exam at school, then they have three government exams that they need to pass. And then depending on which university they choose, they have to take another university entry exam. This situation gives a lot of pressure to the students. This situation has a negative side. Most of the time students start cheating. They will bribe in universities, during government exam, and in the school exam when they graduating. Now, corruption has reached even kindergartens. The parents start paying bribes to enroll their kids because by a new law kids in certain age should have a certain amount of knowledge.
Tengry News: Corruption in Kazakhstan Universities makes $100 million a year.
"Corruption in higher education institutions in Kazakhstan has grown to $100 million per year, Tengrinews reports citing the press office of the Ministry of Education and Science.
Vice-Minister of Education and Science Takir Balykbaev acknowledged that Kazakhstan's higher education sector was not transparent.
“Decisions made on university level lack transparency. Corruption level is very high in this sector. Education is in Top 3 in our country's rating of the most corrupt sectors. (...) The 'grey education market' amounts to tens of million of dollars," he said. 'Buying' semester exams in a university costs from $300 and up for a student, Balykbayev specified citing his own sources.
“According to experts, not only in Kazakhstan, but in education systems world wide the following procedures are the 'corruption hot points': enrollment into a university, accreditation of universities and programs, midterms, semester exams, state procurement procedures and conferring degrees,” the Kazakh Vice Minister said.
There are anti-corruption tools in the education system, but they are not comprehensive and lack a solid foundation, Balykbayev added and promised that the Ministry would create the Anti-Corruption Committee that would work towards elimination of corruption in universities and creating awareness about its negative effects."
What Research Shows?
The results of the study, titled “A Systematic Review of the Impact of Summative Assessment and Tests on Students’ Motivation for Learning,” rebut the claim that standardized testing motivates low achievers to reap the reward of high scores and avoid the punishment of failure. In fact, researchers Wynne Harlen and Dr. Ruth Deakin-Crick of Bristol University found that the two categories of students particularly discouraged by constant testing are girls and low achievers.
These findings call into question the claims of U.S. high-stakes testing proponents that they have found the key to closing the race-based achievement gap, since the study results suggest that groups such as low-income and many minority students, who traditionally score low on standardized tests, are likely to be among those who are demotivated by consistently poor test results.
The study also found that constant testing encourages even successful students to see the goals of education in terms of passing tests rather than developing an understanding of what they are learning, supporting previous research done in the United States (see Examiner, Winter 1997).
The researchers found firm evidence that achievement of literacy is linked to students’ interest in learning, the degree to which their learning strategies link to existing knowledge rather than just memorizing, and the degree to which they feel in control of their learning. The authors concluded that policymakers must recognize that high-stakes testing is providing information about students’ attainment while reducing their motivation to learn.
Counterproductive John Diamond and James Spillane of Northwestern University found that the response to high stakes accountability in low-performing schools may be counterproductive. They closely examined four Chicago schools—two performing fairly well on mandated tests, two doing poorly. All the schools did considerable test preparation, but the lower-performing schools tended to test more, focus attention on those close to passing, and engage in other activities not likely to help most of their students. Since low-income and minority-group students are concentrated in the lower-performing schools, and those schools use unhelpful methods while schools serving wealthier students use more effective methods to raise scores, the results of high-stakes accountability testing could be to widen test-score gaps.
Dropouts Using data from the federal government’s National Educational Longitudinal Survey, Sean Reardon and Claudia Galindo of Pennsylvania State found that “the presence of an eighth grade promotion test requirement is strongly associated with an increased probability of dropping out prior to tenth grade.” This particularly affects low-income, lower-achieving students.
Teaching Strategies That Prepare Students for High-Stakes Tests
Standardized tests are a unique text genre, and they require readers and writers to do different things than they would normally, so teachers can’t assume that students already know how to take reading tests. It’s essential that teachers prepare students to take high-stakes tests without abandoning a balanced approach to instruction that’s aligned to state standards.teachers must prepare students for high-stakes tests without sacrificing their instructional program. Unfortunately, with the pressure to raise test scores, some teachers are having students take more multiple-choice tests while writing fewer essays and creating fewer projects. So, these five ways to prepare students for high-stakes tests without sacrificing the instructional program:
Teachers check that their state’s curriculum standards align with their instructional program and make any needed adjustments to ensure that they’re teaching what’s going to be on the test.
Teachers set goals with students and use informal assessments to regularly monitor their progress.
Teachers actively engage students in authentic literacy activities so that they become capable readers and writers.
Teachers explain the purpose of the tests and how the results will be used, without making students anxious.
Teachers stick with a balanced approach that combines explicit instruction and authentic application.
Conclusion
Measuring what and how well students learn is an important building block in the process of strengthening and improving our nation's schools. Tests, along with student grades and teacher evaluations, can provide critical measures of students' skills, knowledge, and abilities. Therefore, tests should be part of a system in which broad and equitable access to educational opportunity and advancement is provided to all students. Tests, when used properly, are among the most sound and objective ways to measure student performance. But, when test results are used inappropriately or as a single measure of performance, they can have unintended adverse consequences.
Today, many school districts are mandating tests to measure student performance and to hold individual schools and school systems accountable for that performance. Knowing if and what students are learning is important. Test results give classroom teachers important information on how well individual students are learning and provide feedback to the teachers themselves on their teaching methods and curriculum materials.
It is important to remember, however, that no test is valid for all purposes. Indeed, tests vary in their intended uses and in their ability to provide meaningful assessments of student learning. Therefore, while the goal of using large-scale testing to measure and improve student and school system performance is laudable, it is also critical that such tests are sound, are scored properly, and are used appropriately.
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