Arizona will be combining two standardized tests to give students more classroom time - but might also be lowering the standards on the eighth-grade math exam:
The Stanford 9, given every year to measure Arizona students against their counterparts across the country, and the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards will take just one week rather than the two it takes now. The tests are given in the spring.
Eliminating classroom time to prepare and take the Stanford 9 will allow students to do better without school officials' losing the ability to gauge their knowledge, supporters of the move said...
So what about that new standards on the math AIMS?
Also Monday, a new scoring system for the eighth-grade AIMS math test was proposed because state Education Department officials believe the test scores do not accurately reflect student achievement.
I find this statement confusing. A change in the standard - in this case, by dropping the required passing scaled score from a 78 to a 72 - means that more students will pass. I'd like to know why Arizona believes that more students passing is a more accurate reflection of achievement. If the standard is eventually changed, I hope it will be because the Education Department really believes that those student who score higher than 72 are in fact doing "good enough" on math. I hope the change isn't being made simply because the state simply has a feeling that more than 22% of students should pass.
Apollo Principal Conger supports the proposed change in the eighth-grade test. "They took the data and I think they want to make it more successful for more students," she said. "It's not lowering the standard or watering it down - it's probably being more realistic.
"We don't want to disenfranchise kids," she said.
Sigh. Look, if you lower the cutpoint, you lower the standard, period (assuming the item types and difficulties remain the same). Lowering the standard is not necessarily a bad thing - IF there's real data to suggest that the current standard is too high and disqualifies too many students who really do have the skills. Let's not start off this discussion, though, by denying that lowering the standard is in fact what Arizona wants to do.
As for the "disenfranchise" statement, well, my first reaction is, "If you don't want to disenfranchise kids, teach them math." Again, if the previous standard was really too high, in that students who made scores between 72 and 78 really did have the skills to go forward in math, then fine. Lower the standard. But don't talk about "disenfranchising" kids with test scores. It's not a low test score that is the stumbling block; it's the lack of skills being conveyed by that score. If kids who don't understand math well will nonethless be passed under this new, lower standard, the state isn't doing them any favors.
Posted by kswygert at January 26, 2004 10:58 PM