High Stakes Testing for Tracking, Promotion, and Graduation (1999) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-12
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
These policies enjoy wiciespreac3 public support anc3 are increasingly seen as a means of raising academic stanciarcis, holding educators anc3 students ac' countable for meeting those stanciarcis, anc3 boosting public confidence in the schools. Because the stakes are high, the Congress wants to ensure that tests are used properly and fairly, and it asked the National Acaclemy of Sci' ences, through its National Research Council, to "concluct a study anc3 make written recommendations on appropriate methods, practices anc3 safeguards to ensure that A
|
From page 2... ...
By focusing on the congressional interest in high~stakes decisions about incliviclual students, this report floes not aciciress accountability at those other levels, apart from the issue of participation of all students in large~scale assessments. BASIC PRINCIPLES OF TEST USE The use of tests in decisions about student tracking, promotion, anc3 graduation is intenclec3 to serve educational policy goals, such as setting high stanciarcis for student learning, raising student achievement~levels, ensuring equal educational opportunity, fostering parental involvement in student learning, anc3 increasing public support for the schools.
|
From page 3... ...
effectiveness of treatment whether test scores leac3 to place' meets anc3 other consequences that are educationally beneficial. These criteria, based on established professional stanciarcis, lead to the following basic principles of appropriate test use for educational cleci' signs: · The important thing about a test is not its validity in general, but its validity when used for a specific purpose.
|
From page 4... ...
But tracking, promotion, and graduation decisions also share common features that pertain both to appropriate test use and to their educational and social consequences. Members of some minority groups, English-language learners, and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds are overrepresented in lower-track classes and among those denied promotion or graduation on the basis of test scores.
|
From page 5... ...
For example, assignment to low tracks is typically associated with an impoverished curriculum, poor teaching, anc3 low expectations. It is also important to note that group differences in test performance c30 not necessarily incli' care problems in a test, because test scores may reflect real differences in achievement.
|
From page 6... ...
For example, "social promotion" and repetition of a grade are really only two of many educational strategies available to educators when test scores and other information indicate that students are experiencing serious academic difficulty. But neither social promotion nor retention alone is an effective treatment for low achievement, and schools can use a number of other possible strategies to reduce the need for these either-or choices, for example, by coupling early identification of such students with effective remedial education.
|
From page 7... ...
At the same time, all students should receive sufficient preparation for the specific test so their perfor' mance will not be adversely affected by unfamiliarity with its format or by ignorance of appropriate test-taking strategies. · Accurate assessment of students with disabilities and Englishman guage learners presents complex technical anc3 policy challenges, in part because these students are particularly vulnerable to potential negative consequences when high~stakes decisions are based on tests.
|
From page 8... ...
. Indicator systems could include measures such as retention rates, special education identification rates, rates of exclusion from assessment programs, number anc3 type of accommodations, high school completion credentials, dropout rates, anc3 indicators of access to high-quality curriculum anc3 instruction.
|
From page 9... ...
Large-scale assessments, used properly, can improve teaching, learning, anc3 equality of educational opportunity. That tests are sometimes used improperly shouic3 not discourage policymakers, teachers, anc3 parents.
|
From page 11... ...
Part ~ Background and Context
|
From page 12... ...
Page 12 PART I BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.