When it comes to standardized tests, stakes high for all involved

Florence Middle School eighth-grader Ashley Grissom has one thing on her mind these days: those springtime state standardized tests that will soon be consuming every hour of her school day for two weeks.

She believes she's prepared, but she also knows those tests can be tricky in sections. And she knows the academic stakes are high.

"I still get nervous about the tests because I know that the results will determine what classes I'm placed in next year," she said.

For Grissom, there's a method to the test-taking madness. She strategizes.

"With the reading portion, I pace myself and read the questions first, then read the passage so I kind of have an idea of what I'm looking for while I'm reading," she said. "With math, I just go over and over the (formulas) so I know what I'm doing."

It's difficult to overestimate the importance of standardized tests in public schools today. The federal government has seen to that through accountability measures called for under the No Child Left Behind law which took effect in early 2002.

The high stakes of the tests go beyond school districts' getting the OK from the state on student performance. It can mean grade advancement for students, a principal's or teacher's job and reputation, and in some states, teacher bonuses.

In Alabama, the state tests include the Alabama Reading and Math Test (ARMT) for grades third through eighth, and state writing assessments in grades fifth, seventh and 10th. This year, the state has added the Alabama Science Assessment for grades fifth, seventh and 11th, and has revamped the science portion of the Alabama Graduation Exam to test only biology.

Gloria Turner, the director of student assessment for the Alabama Department of Education, admits that testing is big business.

But gone are the days of the Stanford Achievement Test, the SAT10, being the standard measurement of student achievement in Alabama. Those norm-referenced tests gauge student progress in Alabama compared to that of students in other states. Questions on the SAT10 don't necessarily reflect what's being learned in Alabama schools. The ARMT, on the other hand, is a direct reflection of the Alabama course of study.

So why continue to give the SAT10?

Turner said the reason is twofold: Norm-referenced tests give a comparison to national standards and some of the questions on the SAT10 are part of the ARMT scoring.

"We talk more about the ARMT results because it's the accountability measure in the state," Turner said. "But we recognize that we absolutely still need the SAT10."

Testing coordinators in local school districts feel the pressure to get preparatory materials to teachers so they have plenty of time to ready their classes for tests that are given within a two-week window in late March and early April.

Cheryl Valentine, school improvement administrator for Florence City Schools, said that while the ARMT does a good job testing information taught through the state curriculum, she fears it's not enough.

"My fear is that the ARMT will become the ceiling instead of the basement," she said. "SATs aren't the measure valued by the state any more, but they're still vitally important if we want Alabama children to be competitive academically with their peer groups around the country. We need to go beyond this thinking that the (state) testing we have in place is all we need. Our job is to prepare children to succeed anywhere in the world they choose to live and work."

From state to state, standardized testing differs. Some states, such as Ohio, require in-depth answers on certain test sections while others offer solely multiple choice. The cost of the two types of answer formats are vastly different, with essays and even short answer tests being much more costly to assess. Alabama is in the minority of states offering writing tests.

Turner said Alabama's writing tests, which are more subjective, require a sophisticated grading system scored by two people. It's a reliability measure, she said.

Likewise, the ARMT is a big expense for the state, costing about $5 million per year, a large part of which is the cost of scoring open-ended questions that require human assessment.

The SAT10 costs about $828,000 per year to administer and is predominantly multiple choice.

No Child Left Behind's efforts to produce high-quality assessments have come with a steep price tag. Across the country, state spending on testing has skyrocketed since the law was enacted. In early 2001, a year before No Child Left Behind was enacted, states collectively spent almost $423 million on standardized tests. During the current school year, states will spend nearly $1.1 billion on standardized testing.

The increased emphasis on testing has caused other pressures as well. States are now testing later in the academic year to squeeze in more teaching. And, states want scores back faster than ever before.

"These standardized tests are valuable because we plan from these results," said Kendrick Burns, guidance counselor at Cherokee Elementary School. "These results provide not only an accountability measure for our students, but for our teachers throughout the state. We have to teach the curriculum or it shows up in the test results. The sooner we know those results, the sooner we can get to work on correcting the problem areas. We have to determine what we can implement that helps us meet our objectives."

While the majority of standardized tests are published by just a handful of companies, including CTB/MGraw-Hill, Educational Testing Service, Harcourt Assessment, Pearson Educational Measurement and Riverside Publishing, the creation of the tests comes from years of work within professional ranks of state educators.

Large committees of education professionals provide questions from each academic discipline for submission. It can take up to two years for the questions to be sifted through and finally selected for inclusion on the test. The testing company must sort through the questions and form pilot tests. Students answer volumes of questions, and from the data collected, the company can determine which questions are suited for the test and which ones are confusing and unusable.

Because the teachers administering the tests never see the questions, they have to trust that the questions will reflect the curriculum that has been taught.

"The tests are measuring what they're supposed to measure," Burns said.

Lisa Singleton-Rickman can be reached at 740-5735 or lisa.singleton-rickman@timesdaily.com.