Fellow blogger Liz Ditz emailed me to point out that students are skipping out on exams that are low-stakes to them, but high-stakes to the schools:
Torrey Pines High School [CA], the academic powerhouse proclaimed by Newsweek as among the top 100 campuses in the country, is in the academic doghouse. Nearly 300 students at Torrey Pines skipped the statewide standardized tests in the spring, and because of low turnout, one the highest-achieving high schools in California didn't receive a statewide ranking, known as the Academic Performance Index.
The index crunches test results into a single number between 200 and 1000, and Torrey Pines' base score of 855 last year was among the highest in the state. This designation doesn't have any consequences for students, but it is high stakes for schools.
Principal Rick Schmitt said the API score is a symbol of a school's academic standing. It affects property values and is used by real estate agents to sell homes..."Individuals feel there's nothing in it for them," said Schmitt of students who are expected to take the tests. "If the community is better informed and once people understand what it means on a bigger scale, they can appreciate why it's important."
Well, yes, but I can see why students skip. Trying to get good data without stakes for the test-taker has always been a thorny issue, and there's not any one solution that works for all tests. When students get fed up with tests to the point of drawing cool patterns on their bubble sheets, something's gotta change. The data are worthless at that point. Students must have an incentive.
They study hard for the SAT and sweat over the APs; they at least show up for the high school exit exam. But yet another test that doesn't matter at all, to them, might be too much.
Posted by kswygert at October 20, 2004 02:41 PM