Hoo-boy. A smart Ohio student, John Wood, takes a very public stance against an exit exam:
My high school graduation took place during the Memorial Day weekend. However, despite being ranked sixth in my class, I did not cross the stage that day, and my dad, our high school principal, did not give me a diploma. I did not drop out at the last minute, and I was not expelled. I didn’t graduate because I refused to take the Ohio Proficiency Tests.I did this because I believe these high-stakes tests (which are required for graduation) are biased, irrelevant, and completely unnecessary.
For whom? Irrelevant for those who are ranked sixth in their class and have a principal for a father to boot? Unnecessary for those who won't have much trouble grabbing a GED and some online time to air their anti-testing views?
The bias of the tests is demonstrated by Ohio’s own statistics. They show consistently that schools with high numbers of low-income and/or minority students score lower on state tests. It is argued (in defense of testing) that this is not the tests’ fault, that the scores are only a reflection of the deeper socioeconomic injustices. This is very likely true. What makes the tests biased is the fact that the state does little or nothing to compensate for the differences that the students experience outside the classroom. In fact, the state only worsens the situation with its funding system. Ohio’s archaic school funding system underfunds schools in poorer areas because it is based on property taxes. The way we fund our schools has been declared unconstitutional four times, and yet the state legislature refuses to fix the problem.
Tests that measure what we intend them to measure - in this case, academic performance - are not biased. Critics have quite the tendency to stretch the definition of the word "bias" into anything they see as "not quite fair," and that's what John is doing here. What is happening here is "differential impact," which is something else altogether (see here for a previous discussion). What John is fighting against here is the right of the state to use a test that has differential impact - a test showing that students whose parents don't contribute much financially towards education tend not to do so well. He obviously doesn't believe that parents should have a choice in deciding where their property tax money goes. He should label his fight as such, rather than erroneously tossing around words like "bias."
The irrelevance of these tests is also demonstrated by state statistics—in this case, the lack of them. In 13 years of testing, Ohio has failed to conduct any studies linking scores on the proficiency tests to college-acceptance rates, college grades, income levels, incarceration rates, dropout rates, scores on military-recruiting tests, or any other similar statistic.
If true, this proves only that Ohio has failed to produce data showing the relevance of the exams. It does not prove that the tests are irrelevant. What's more, if the purpose of the exam is to show that a student has learned what they need to know in high school, then we would not expect the test to be any more predictive of variables such as income, incarceration, or college grades than we would expect high school performance to be. If achieving a high-school diploma is not highly correlated to college grades, there's no reason to expect the test scores to correlate with those grades - but that's not proof the test is irrelevant.
More important, a system already exists for determining when students are ready to graduate. The ongoing assessment by teachers who spend hours with the students is more than sufficient for determining when they are ready to graduate.
If it weren't for grade inflation, social promotion, widely-varying standards among teachers, and the fact that teachers nowadays are unlikely to flunk the vast numbers of students who deserve it, he might have a point here.
in southeastern Ohio, alternative assessments are alive and kicking. At my school, Federal Hocking High School, in Stewart, Ohio, every senior has to complete a senior project (I built a kayak), compile a graduation portfolio, and defend his or her work in front of a panel of teachers in order to graduate. These types of performance assessments are much more individualized and authentic, and are certainly difficult, something I can attest to, having completed them myself.
(1) The key word here is is "individualized," which can translate to, "Almost impossible to use to compare students over time, students within schools, or schools to one another." Good for some students, bad for seeing whether large groups of students are improving.
(2) Does John have data showing that kayak-building skills are highly positively related to college grades or income? No? Then why does he claim the Ohio tests are irrelevant based on the lack of that same information?
(3) A kayak? In Ohio? The point was?
Note that John is already signed up to attend college this fall, and his voice - in the form of a well-written article - has now been heard publicly. He obviously has not been disadvantaged by this situation, either from the exam itself or his failure to take it. Does he really believe, I wonder, that kids who enter high school still struggling with reading and basic math would benefit as much as he did from a kayak-building experience in place of a basic skills exam?
Update: I forgot to mention that this week's EdWeek has a forum set up to discuss this article. Be sure to leave a comment.
Update #2: Excellent discussion by Quincy, including a link to Joanne's comments about the heartbreak of discovering in college that you aren't quite as great as you thought you were in high school.
Posted by kswygert at June 22, 2005 10:21 AM