EDCI 6312 Educational Measurement Educational Testing and Assessment: Context, Issues and Trends

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EDCI 6312 - Educational MeasurementEducational
Testing and Assessment Context, Issues and
Trends

• Dr. Reynaldo Ramirez, Jr
• Associate Professor for Secondary and Science
  Education

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Summarize Five Decades of Test-Based Education

• Federal Support of Compensatory Education Title
  I (mid-1960s)
• Minimum-Competency Testing (70s-early 80s)
• A Nation At-Risk (Mid-Late 80s)
• Standards-Based Reforms (1990s)
• No Child Left Behind (2000s)

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No Child Left Behind (NCLB)P.L. 107-110

• All students beginning 2005-2006 in grades 3
  through 8 and in at least one grade in high
  school in reading or language arts and
  mathematics must be tested every year.
• Beginning with the 2007-2008 school year, states
  will also be required to test students annually
  in science in at least one grade in each of three
  grade spans (3-5, 6-9, 10-12).
• Schools that fail to meet annual yearly
  progress will be placed on a needs-improvement
  category.

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Other Assessments

• State Assessments
• Used for accountability or accreditation
• Grade-to-grade promotion
• Graduation from High School
• National Assessment of Educational Progress
  (NAEP)
• Required by NCLB
• Subjects tested Reading Mathematics
• Standardized Tests
• Classroom Tests

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Concerns About Testing

• Nature and Quality of the Tests
• Effects of Testing on Students
• Test Anxiety
• Tests Categorize and Label Students
• Tests Damage Students Self Concepts
• Tests Create Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• Fairness to Minorities
• Gender Fairness

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High-Stakes Testing Is Putting the Nation At Risk
Berliner Nichols

• What are the key points made by Berliner and
  Nichols?
• Who listens to the authors?
• What is the likelihood that research in
  high-stakes testing will lead us away from these
  tests? Why?