An amusing and thorough article about the rise and potential fall of standardized tests:
...the consensus is that standardized tests weren't created for such a sweeping, high-stakes purpose. Scores point out a child's strengths and weaknesses, but they don't paint a complete picture, say experts, known as psychometricians.They cite other problems with high-stakes tests: greater motivation to cheat and the possibility that results will be distorted by overpreparation.
"That's the position of our entire field," said Steve Dunbar, head of Iowa Testing Programs, developer of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, taken by more than 350,000 Georgia kids in grades three, five and eight. "A test is just a snapshot of where that particular kid is on a particular day"..
Experts in the Lindquist Center, where test booklets are stacked high against the walls, expect No Child Left Behind to run its course. They're confident the politically driven pendulum will swing back to a more reasonable view of the value of testing. Dunbar predicts public support will wane because of results that don't seem to make sense — as when a highly regarded school like Cobb County's Walton High gets dinged for not making enough progress, which happened in 2003. (Like many Georgia high schools, Walton did not test 95 percent of its students, as the law requires.)
"The tests," Dunbar said, "will lose credibility."
Until they do, life is sweet for those schooled in test development. Testing companies, academic think tanks, public policy groups and state agencies compete for the great minds in testing, especially those that come out of the University of Iowa.
In fact, I'd say competition is fierce even for the not-so-great minds, as evidenced by the continuing employment of yours truly (heh). On the other hand, pretty much every testing company is understaffed and overworked, which is definitely "unsweet" in many ways.
Posted by kswygert at May 9, 2005 12:10 PM