Something seems to be very, very wrong with the standardized test scores for children in East St. Louis (Illinois), and an audit is being considered to further examine scores which are going up and down like a rollercoaster ride:
Something is wrong, possibly very wrong, with standardized test scores for East St. Louis school children. That's the conclusion of Richard Mark, chairman of District 189's state-appointed oversight panel, after nearly a decade of watching test scores climb and fall like a rollercoaster, often in the same school buildings and only a few years apart.
Case in point: Brown Elementary School was named a federal Blue Ribbon School winner. That's because in the 2001-02 school year, 82 percent of its third-graders met benchmarks for reading and math on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. Yet, preliminary figures for the 2002-03 test scores show a stunning 32 percent drop in test scores for Brown's third-graders.
And at seven other District 189 schools, variances of 12 percentage points or more were found over a four-year period, ending with the 2001-02 school year.
Emphasis mine. A similar problem with high variability in test scores uncovered a cheating scandal in Chicago recently, and that's what's feared here in East St. Louis. The words "red flag" come to mind for everone who's examining these data.
Why does this variability suggest cheating? According to one study, classrooms that cheat with teacher participation will show unusually large score gains for one year, but these gains do not continue - scores level out or even drop the subsequent year. The key is in the size of the gain - individual students may show large fluctuations, but overall mean scores shouldn't show huge amounts of fluctuation year to year, especially fluctuations that change direction.
Of course, a school that implements a radically-new process could show a large gain one year, with gains leveling off after that. Low- or no-stakes tests can also be more unstable, because kids may not try their best. And those who want to examine the scores face charges of racism, despite the fact that cheaters, whether they be teachers or students or both, aren't doing kids of any race a favor.
In a related article, a buddy of mine, testing and test cheating expert Professor Greg Cizek, is pontificating on the subject of "test tampering" - which seems to be on the rise:
Some educators call teacher cheating the inevitable result of the nation's test score obsession. And experts agree that test tampering - and suspicion of it - is on the rise.
"It's picked up," said Gregory J. Cizek, a nationally known testing and cheating expert at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "I am responding all the time to school districts who say, 'We have a problem with this teacher. Can you do an analysis?' " said Cizek, author of Cheating on Tests: How to Do It, Detect It, and Prevent It.
A great book, by the way - and reasonably priced, too! (I figure the more plugs I give his book, the more likely he'll pay for dinner next time he's in town)
But seriously folks, in an age when real estate agents are allegedly showing school report cards to prospective home buyers in an attempt to cash in on good test scores, it's not surprising that some folks are trying to take the easy road:
The most noted test scandals have occurred in New York and Texas, but smaller-scale allegations have erupted in recent years from California to Chicago to Connecticut.
In December 1999, widespread cheating allegations in New York City public schools implicated scores of teachers said to have provided answers on reading and math tests.
Similar, but more isolated, test-tampering cases in Houston, Austin, Dallas and several other Texas districts helped lead to the formation of that state's Public Education Integrity Task Force in 1999.
Dr. Cizek's theory is that teachers who oppose testing may have decided that test-tampering is "justifiable civil disobedience." I can understand teachers not wanting their efforts to be judged wholly by test scores - but any teacher who helps children cheat is not doing them a favor, and the message being sent is not that the government is wrong, or that tests are wrong, but that children should be helped to cheat in order to protect the teacher's reputation and the school's standing. And that's very wrong.
Posted by kswygert at September 22, 2003 10:07 AM