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MARGIN NOTES
October 14, 2009
If the state tests are easier, how did they get that way?
The flat scores New York students received on a national math exam released today have led some to question the validity of the huge jump in state math scores over the same time period.
The results seem to support skeptics who have argued that the statewide exam questions have become easier and more repetitive, the scores inflated, and the number of questions required to pass so low students can hop the bar just by guessing.
“This is a documentation of persistent dumbing down by the state education department and lying to the public,” education historian Diane Ravitch wrote today in an e-mail. “Exactly what Arne Duncan has been saying: When states dumb down their standards, they are lying to the kids, their parents and the public.”
But the question remains: if state exams have gotten easier, how and why did that happen?
The state standards and cutoff scores for passage have been constant since the early 2000s. But the number of correct answers needed to pass has gradually declined since 2006. Each year, a panel of test experts and educators convene as the exams are being field tested and judge each year’s questions according to their difficulty levels. The test-maker, CTB/McGraw Hill, then adjusts how it converts the number of correct answers to the scale score he or she receives.
In recent years, the number of questions judged difficult on the exams has risen, and thus the number of correct answers needed to pass has fallen, test experts have said.
But a side effect of this process has been that those numbers have fallen so low that students who randomly guess their way through the exams are statistically likely to still receive a passing score. And, analysts of the exam have pointed out that virtually all students receive enough points on the free-response section of the exam that the bar for guessing on the multiple choice section is lowered even further.
The situation is complicated further by the fact that the test questions may not be as difficult as test-makers believe them to be, because of the way the state field tests the exams to gauge their difficulty before giving them to all students. In New York, students who sit for the field tests are told that the exam they are about to take is only experimental.
This creates a motivational problem, test experts have said, in which students don’t take the experimental tests seriously and perform worse than would on a real exam. The conclusions test-makers draw from the field test results are then flawed; the test questions could then seem more difficult than they are. That misunderstanding would then have repercussions as the number of questions required to pass are scaled downward.
This gradual process of lowering the standards on the state exams has happened entirely as the tests are developed. But experts also have not ruled out the possibility that external factors, such as increased teaching to the test, have also contributed to the swift rise in scores.
Daniel Koretz, the Harvard education professor who has written extensively about standardized testing, has told me that the “700-pound gorilla” in New York state was that no one yet knows if the state tests are measuring real learning, and if not, what exactly is wrong with them.
Koretz and another testing expert, Howard Everson, have been calling for more than a year for an independent academic study examining the state exams’ credibility.
Both Koretz and Everson suspect that a phenomenon called “score inflation” may have contributed to the jump in scores over the years since the tests were last overhauled. Score inflation happens when scores rise artificially because of factors other than true understanding of the content–because teachers have coached students on how to ace predictable tests, for example, or because they give students extra time.
The state has thus far declined the opportunity to participate in any studies looking at how credible the exam results are.
But the pressure is mounting to re-examine the state tests.
Everson, who also chairs a committee of test experts that oversees the state testing process, said this afternoon that he was glad that the national math scores have re-focused attention on possible problems with the state tests.
“I’m encouraged that the new chancellor and commissioner are taking this very seriously,” he said. “I don’t want them to lose their momentum, so if this gives them more fuel for the fire, I think that’s great.”
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October 15th, 2009 8:13 am
Maura is this an attempt at journalism? You repeat the same lie that was true the first time it appeared in papers, that it is possible to pass state exams by guessing. Getting a level 2 on state tests is not considered passing. This really strikes me as the George Bush style of writing where if something’s repeated enough times then it must be true.
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October 15th, 2009 8:15 am
Maura is this an attempt at journalism? You repeat the same lie that was true the first time it appeared in papers, that it is possible to pass state exams by guessing. Getting a level 2 on state tests is not considered passing. This really strikes me as the George Bush style of writing where if something’s repeated enough times then it must be true. Before parroting previous articles you should at least check if they are true.
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October 15th, 2009 9:09 am
The “cut scores” for what counted as a passing score on state ELA and mathematics exams were quietly lowered this year. Since many kids straddle the line between Level 2 and Level 3 (think of a standard fat-in-the-middle bell curve), even shifting the cut score by a point or two can shift the percentage of a school’s students who are deemed “proficient” by 10-20 percentage points.
This effect is independent of the level of difficulty of the questions.
So, when lay people hear that the tests have been dumbed down, they assume the questions must be easier. This is not necessarily true. The same test, when paired with lower cut scores, will produce artifically high “proficiency” rates.
Personally, I predicted that the cut scores would be lowered this past year because it was departing State Education Commissioner Rick Mills last year. Thus the Department had an incentive to show that scores had risen under his tenure. Similarly, excuse my cynicism, Steiner has an incentive to make next year’s cut scores very tough, so that he has a very low baseline.
The process of setting cut scores needs to be made much more transparent, which would help minimize this monkeying around. Plus, outside experts need to be brought in to determine the level of difficulty of the questions that comprise the assessments.
The answer is not to get rid of predictability. In fact, we should want stable legitimate state standards and an entirely predictable level of high rigor on state assessments. If that goal is attained, you actually would want teachers to teach to the test.
Right now, it’s a joke.
Lastly, we should move to a testing system that judges schools by gains from year to year, rather than a snapshot in time. But, a “growth” model only works if changes in outcomes from year to year are legitimate and not a function of gamesmanship at State Ed.
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October 15th, 2009 10:03 am
Queens Parent, I have to disagree with your assertion that a Level 2 is not considered passing. It may not be *called* passing (the preferred term is “approaching grade level”) but as a teacher, if my students score a level 2 on either the ELA or Math test, they were promoted to the next grade, no question, no discussion. They weren’t even mandated to go to summer school. If that’s not an operative definition of “passing” I don’t know what is.
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October 15th, 2009 10:28 am
Robert I’m not mincing words here. You are conflating two things, a passing standardized test score and the City’s promotion policies, which use standardized tests. Only a Level 3 and 4 are considered to be passing by the State Education Department. This is how scores are reported throughout the state. Only students who score a Level 3/4 are reported as “proficient” for accountability purposes, including NCLB. So it’s quite unfair to then say a student “passed” his state exam with a Level 2, even if the City’s own promotion policy considered some kind of “high level 2″ to be acceptable for promotion. It may be acceptable for grade promotion, but it is still not considered proficient academically by the State.
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October 15th, 2009 10:34 am
Queens Parent is correct that a Level 3 indicates “proficiency” and Level 4 indicates “mastery.” If the City is promoting students who score a Level 2, then it is promoting students who, by the state’s standards, are not proficient in that subject. The lowering of the cut scores means that students who have not actually attained “proficiency” are being so labeled. Under either scenario, a Level 2 is not proficient.
On a broader level, the number system is hopelessly confusing to parents, who can’t remember if a Level 1 or Level 4 is better. How many people chant, “I’m Number 4.”
Personally, I prefer moving to a letter grading for the state accountability system. Would be more understandable for parents and thus aid transparency.
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October 15th, 2009 10:38 am
I appreciate that, QP, but I’m not mincing words either. In fact, I’m disregarding them altogther. It matters not at all what we call something, but rather what actions the thing sets in motion. There’s an amusing old Lincoln anecdtote wherein Abe asks “How many legs does a dog have if we call its tail a leg?” The answer is four, he said “because calling its tail a leg doesn’t make it one.” Same thing here. Calling a 2 a failing grade is meaningless unless it carries with it some manner of palapable response. My fifth graders considered a 2 a passing grade because it enabled them to pass to the 6th grade. Like Lincoln’s dog’s tail, calling it a failuring grade doesn’t make it so.
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October 15th, 2009 11:05 am
Robert if your students considered a Level 2 passing then it is their parents’ faults. The State is very clear about what is passing, even on the reports that they send out to each parent, and those reports clearly say the Level 2 is failing. It doesn’t matter if the City undermines it with their promotion policy.
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October 15th, 2009 7:11 pm
QP,
If you’re going to parse, let’s really do it up and have a pretty petty parsing party.I would suggest the DOE’s own web site page most applicable to this parsleymonious hair-splitting is the page re “Promotion Policy” (sans formatting):
“Criteria for Promotion to the Next Grade”
“Achieve at or above Proficiency Level 2″
“Achieve at or above Proficiency Level 2″
“Achieve at or above Proficiency Level 2″My keyboard’s not stuck. That’s as many times as that clause appears.
“Levels” refer to relative “Proficiency.”
As to your nuance that the STATE assigned the Level score, but the wimpy CITY decided to promote anyway… please let me know what other cities hold kids back for scoring Level 2.
All together now, WHAT Level do you need to get promoted to the next grade?
The State is clear on what is proficient, though as we both know, even that ain’t so clear.
P.S. “City” goes with “its”, not “their.” Common mistake. But one glitch like that, and there goes your 4.
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