Policy & Action Series showcases opposing views
Technology is enabling a new look at how students and school achievement are measured, enabling data-driven decisions to shape education. Policies to determine how to use the data generated by standardized testing are being debated throughout the education community.
The effectiveness of standardized testing and implementation of policies intended to enhance education was discussed, and at times fiercely debated, at a recent Policy and Action seminar hosted by the Friday Institute and the N.C. State University College of Education Department of Educational Leadership.
The seminar, "Putting a Face to the Data: The Future of Student Assessment and School Accountability," featured two diametrically opposing views.
Dr. William L. Sanders, a senior research fellow with the University of North Carolina system and manager of value-added assessment and research for the SAS Institute, talked about how statistics can provide valuable insight to shape education. Sanders joined SAS following his retirement after more than 34 years as a professor and director of the University of Tennessee's Value-Added Research and Assessment Center.
Dr. Gerald W. Bracey, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at George Mason University and an independent researcher focusing on assessment and policy analysis, said too much emphasis is being put on standardized testing to the detriment of our nation's education, a primary theme of his latest book, "Reading Educational Research: How to Avoid Getting Statistically Snookered."
The federal No Child Left Behind law mandates that schools and districts be held accountable for student achievement. While students are tested each year, there are no specific requirements about how educators should use the test results to improve education.
Sanders' work with what is called "value-added assessment" is a method to analyze test results to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and instructional approaches, ensuring that schools are targeting resources where they are most needed and that students at all achievement levels are making progress. Value-added assessment is a diagnostic tool to identify which students are at risk, enabling educators to proactively make instructional choices, he said.
"The value is the wealth of diagnostic information it can give to teachers and administrators," Sanders said. Teachers and administrators should be held accountable for things which they control - that does not include the scholastic attainment level that students have achieved when they walk in the door. "What they do have primary control over is the rate of progress the students make," Sanders said. Value-added assessment provides a tool to measure the progress.
On the Other Hand
Too much emphasis on test scores is destroying education across the nation, Bracey said.
Singapore students may test higher in science and math than American students in the 4th and 8th grades, but they aren't as successful as their American counterparts when they enter the "real world" of business after graduation.
"Some of the things we value most are exceedingly difficult to measure. How do you measure creativity, critical thinking, resourcefulness, civic mindedness, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm - the list goes on and on. These are the things that really count - and they are hard to measure in standardized tests," Bracey said. "I believe global competitiveness has more to do with innovation and creativity than high test scores."
The audience enjoyed the different perspectives. "There is certainly a lot of tension between the two main speakers," said Kenneth Barnes, principal of Shepard magnet middle school in Durham. "Any time you get two different perspectives like this, it is always good to hear both sides of the argument. I appreciate the Friday Institute bringing us together for this discussion."
The presentations by Sanders and Bracey were followed with panel discussions with Dr. Louis M. Fabrizio of the N.C. Department of Public Instruction; Joel Griffin, retired principal of Maryville Middle School; and Sharon Kirk, superintendent of Dubois Area School District.
Griffin, who has 33 years of education experience as a classroom teacher, assistant principal and principal, and a recipient of the Milken Family Foundation National Education Award, said the debate over value-added assessment is too often viewed as all or nothing. He conceded that there are many things that schools want to teach students that are not measured well by tests, "but we need to know what kids know," he said. One of the ways to measure that is by value-added assessment models.
Like a doctor working with a patient, using tools such as value-added assessment enables schools to identify the learning needs of students and design education programs for each student. "It is a tool to help us provide the best possible education for each student by diagnosing the education needs and prescribing the appropriate level of instruction on a continuous basis. We were able to change the school to fit the needs of each student," Griffin said.
“As the title "Policy and Action Series" suggests, the College's educational leadership and policy programs are developing tomorrow's administrators for key positions at the local, state and national levels," said NC State College of Education Dean Kay Moore. "That is why the Policy and Action Series is so important to our mission."
Moore said that the purpose of the series is to provide insightful examination of policy issues. "Given that we are in an era of accountability, it comes as no surprise that accountability is at the center of many discussions about school policies, school reforms, and student learning," she said. "Accountability drives schooling in contemporary society, and assessment has become the cornerstone to school reforms and state and federal accountability programs."
