1. Standardized testing

2. The MEAP • Statewide testing program • Started in 1969-70 • Tests against state standards in core areas • Language arts (reading, writing) • Science • Math • Social studies

3. MEAP results • Percent of student meeting standards • By school • Districtwide • Breakouts by race, gender, income • Percentile ranking of districts

4. What MEAP can show • Progress over time • Problem areas over time • Disparities • Race • Gender • Income

5. Misusing MEAP • Comparisons among districts • Comparisons among schools within a district • Marketing tool in hunt for enrollment • Over-focus on core subjects • Teaching to the test

6. Some headlines • ‘MEAP scores improve’ -- Milford Times • ‘Public Schools Beat Charters on MEAP’ -- Lansing State Journal

7. Quotes from stories • ‘Most (charter) schools are out-performing their public school district peers.’ -- Jim Goenner, CMU, quoted in RedOrbit. • ‘Student MEAP performance is in the top 2 percent of the state’s districts while only 28th in per-student spending.’ -- Local school official in Midland Daily News.

8. Michigan Merit Exam • Replaced high school MEAP in 2007 • Three tests in three days • Free ACT college entrance exam • Free job readiness assessment • Core area assessments • Math • Reading • Writing • Science • Social studies

9. What’s at stake? • $4,000 Michigan Promise scholarship • School and district ‘report cards’ • AYP compliance with NCLB • AYP is adequate yearly progress • NCLB is No Child Left Behind Act

10. How is it used? • To tell parents how kids are doing • To help teachers do a better job • Questionably: • To compare schools within a district • To compare districts

11. Experience so far • Failure to meet standards • More than half in math and writing • 40 percent in reading and science • Most met standards in social studies • Test based on new curriculum

12. Testing, pro and con • Pro: • You can only understand what you can measure -- Lord Kelvin • Michigan guarantees students a free public education. • Money is only the input -- the output needs to be measured as well

13. Testing, pro and con • Con: • Based on James W. Popham, education professor at UCLA for 30 years. • ‘The Truth About Testing: An Educator’s Call to Action”

14. The Problem With Tests • They’re good at helping teachers teach • They’re good at helping parents help their kids • But they’re a poor measure of overall quality of schooling

15. Why? • 1) What is taught is not necessarily what is tested • A lot of content is taught • It’s impossible to test for all of it • Choices are made • They don’t always match the practice in individual schools or classrooms

16. Another reason • 2) Important content is often eliminated • Important content tends to be taught well • Too many students learn it to produce a good ‘score spread’ on the test • ‘Score spread’ is an important measure of the statistical reliability of the test

17. Most important reason • Results muddied by what children bring to the classroom • Inherited aptitude • Questions that test for aptitude are great for score spread • Socioeconomic status • Questions that test for aptitude characterize the community, not the school or teachers.

18. Bottom line (Popham) • Standardized tests are valuable • When used to ‘illuminate instruction.’ • They are open to misuse with harmful consequences for students • When they are used to make judgments about overall educational quality.