FCAT news roundup
As Joanne Jacobs notes in today's Jewish World Review, civil rights leaders in Florida are urging minority youngsters to skip the FCAT. Last Friday, a group of FCAT foes descended on Orlando to demand the removal of what they're calling "the Florida Catastrophic Asinine Test." This last article mentions something of which I had been unaware:
At the moment, those who enter community college without a regular or equivalent diploma are limited generally to vocational and technical programs.
You can enter community college without any sort of diploma in Florida? That's interesting. This policy seems to weaken the testing opponents claim that every kid who fails to pass the FCAT is guaranteed to be "left behind." What's more, the legislation to provide an FCAT alternative for seniors has apparently been put on the back burner, although this article says the issue is in the lineup for the next special legislative session. In addition, one Democrat is fighting to require the FCAT for all students, not just those in public schools.
Devoted Reader Darren M. sends along this Fox News story about alleged cultural bias on the FCAT. It's not surprising that the FCAT opponents are making this claim; what is surprising is that Fox is publishing without comment the claim that most tests are culturally biased:
“I call it a testocracy,” said Ron Walters, the director of the African-American Leadership Institute (search) at the University of Maryland. He said that the tests used for high school graduation in Florida are culturally biased, as are most tests across the country now being used to measure the performance of schools, teachers and pupils. “The sum total of these tests is that they are a strong reflection of the white Anglo-American-European experience in American culture,” and unfair to Hispanic and black test-takers..."
The article then goes on to quote the leader of the FCAT boycott, who has apparently referred to President Bush as a neo-Nazi, which is odd. After all, the claim that black and Hispanic youngsters are not equipped to understand the "culture" of reading, writing, and arithmetic is much closer to the Nazi school of thought than, say, the claim that all students in Florida can and should be judged by one standard. How, exactly, is the true "color-blindness" of President Bush's NCLB Act synonymous with the extremely color-sensitive Nazi ideology? His critics never manage to address this point.
Oh, and this is what they are claiming as proof of bias, I suppose; the near-doubling of the number of African-American students passing is ignored, while the gap between those students and others is emphasized:
Earlier this month, the state announced that 41 percent of African-American students scored at or above grade level in 2003, compared to 23 percent in 1998. At the same time, 51 percent of Hispanic students scored at or above grade level in 2003, compared to 38 percent two years before; and 73 percent of white students scored at or above grade level, compared to 65 percent in 1998.
Of course, anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that group means differences are neither necessary nor sufficient indicators of bias. What's more, at least 40% of those failing to pass the FCAT haven't got the grades or credit hours to justify a diploma, so the test can hardly be called "unfair" to them.
...critics say many of the minority students taking the so-called “high-stakes” test have already achieved good grades and SAT scores and would be going on to college if it were not for failing the FCAT.
Soooo...the SAT is a legitimate indicator of intellectual ability for minority students? That's funny. Last year, the Florida NAACP was among the groups who claimed that scholarships based on SAT scores were unfair because the SAT is biased. But now that the FCAT is being bashed, the SAT is okay? I wish these activists would make up their minds.
And then there's columnist Marion Brady (thanks to Peter M. for the link), who criticizes the FCAT not for racial bias but because the test allegedly only measures "remembering secondhand information". Testing is somehow incapable of measuring "categorizing, drawing inferences, generating hypotheses, generalizing, seeing relationships in seemingly unrelated aspects of reality, making value judgments," according to Mr. Brady.
It's interesting to see facts redefined as "secondhand information," as though the only information that could be of any use to a youngster is what they figure out on their own, and that such facts aren't necessary for inferential thinking or creating hypotheses. Interesting, too, to see the claim that standardized tests can't precisely measure any sort of useful, adaptive thinking.
It's true that open-ended and portfolio-based assessments are less reliable than multiple-choice items - but they can be used to measure the kinds of intellectual analysis listed by Mr. Brady. Richard Phelps, in his article, Why Testing Experts Hate Testing, notes that testing opponents seem to deliberately redefine intellectual challenges so that multiple-choice exams cannot possibly measure up. He also rightly asks the question:
If you were about to go under the knife, which kind of surgeon would you want? Perhaps one who used only "higher-order thinking," only "creative and innovative" techniques, and "constructed her own meaning" from every operation she performed?
Or, would you prefer a surgeon who had passed her "lower-order thinking" exams -- on the difference, say, between a spleen and a kidney -- and used tried-and-true methods with a history of success: methods that other surgeons had used successfully? Certainly, there would be some situations where one could benefit from an innovative surgeon. If no aspect whatsoever of the study or practice of surgery were standardized, however, there would be nothing to teach in medical school, and your regular barber or beautician would be as well qualified to "creatively" excise your appendix as anyone else. Ideally, most of us would want a surgeon who possesses both "lower" and "higher" abilities.
What testing critics like Marion Brady would have you forget is that, without mastery of those "lower-order" skills and that "secondhand knowledge," higher-order skills aren't very useful. For example, the United States Medical Licensure Exam (USMLE, otherwise known as the medical boards) is a three-part assessment for graduates of U.S. medical schools. A passing score is required in order to practice medicine in the U.S. And, parts 1 and 2 of the exam are - surprise! - composed of multiple-choice items, because the test developers rightly understand that "critical thinking skills" aren't going to do a potential doctor much good if said candidate doesn't understand the difference between the spleen and the kidneys.
Here are a few interesting FCAT letters and opinions recently:
Hurrah for the FCAT!
We need better FCAT items
Hit the books, not the beach
And, finally, what do you get if you make a perfect score on the third-grade FCAT? An interview published in the paper, an award from the school - and a little stuffed animal from your teacher. Sounds like a sweet deal to me.