DATE: Tuesday, April 1, 1997                TAG: 9704010241

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  231 lines

WILL NEW STATE TESTS MEET VIRGINIA'S NEEDS? THEY'RE PART OF A NEW INITIATIVE TO GUAGE ACHIEVEMENT AND LEARNING

New tests to be given later this month in classrooms across Virginia have triggered an old debate over the best way to gauge how well public schools teach and their students learn.

Students in grades three, five, eight and 11 will take the tests as part of a new initiative to measure achievement and learning.

One test will compare Virginia students to peers across the country; the other will determine whether students are learning what's supposed to be taught in Virginia's beefed up curriculum.

The state is proposing that beginning with this fall's high school freshmen, the Class of 2001, students will have to pass the 11th-grade state-standards test to graduate. Most questions will require students to pick the right answer from among several choices.

This prompts some educators to renew the long-held complaint that these tests don't really show what students know or how well they think, analyze or problem-solve. Instead some testing experts say, multiple choice exams measure mostly lower-level intellectual skills, like memorization.

``For politicos and policy wonks, this is right on the money,'' said Edward ``Skip'' Kifer, a University of Kentucky professor who specializes in testing.

``I don't think you could confuse what you get from schooling with what you find out on a test.''

Kifer supports alternatives to multiple-choice tests, such as open-ended questions that enable students to show their reasoning, and group activities from which students can draw inferences.

Others - including the state Board of Education, which picked Virginia's tests - counter that the fact-based, multiple-choice-type test is more objective, less expensive and easier to administer. The results are more defensible than those of other open-ended tests, board members say. The tests fit well with Virginia's new, tougher, fact-based curriculum standards that have second-graders learning about ancient Egypt and China, among other things. Such tests also are cheaper and easier to administer.

Test results will be reported starting in spring 1998. They'll be a factor in accrediting public schools. Proposed standards for accreditation would make the 11th-grade test a hurdle for high-school graduation beginning with this fall's freshman class. So far, the state hasn't changed the requirement that graduates pass the sixth-grade Literacy Passport Test of basic reading and math skills. That would require a change in state law.

The board in an April 1996 resolution said ``standardized and machine-scoreable assessments are a proven means of measuring student achievement in the acquisition of knowledge and skills.'' It also said that ``nontraditional assessments'' - such as observations, projects, portfolios and demonstrations - carry too many problems: cost, time and ``unproven methods for providing results that are reliable, valid, generalizable, and equitable. . . .''

``It's a controversial area,'' concluded Tonya R. Moon, a University of Virginia assistant professor who worked on the committee that sought bids for the state testing contract.

Actually, the new Virginia Assessment System contains two parts.

One test is a standard, nationally used one that will compare Virginia students to peers across the country by weighing results against a national norm. Students in grades three, five, eight and 11 will take this test, the Stanford Achievement Test Series, Ninth Edition - commonly called the ``Stanford 9'' - sometime in April.

It's a multiple-choice exam replacing the long-used Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and Tests of Achievement and Proficiency, or TAP. The results will be recorded and released to students. Scores will be hard to compare with past years - it's a different test, plus it's based on a new standard.

The second part of the state tests will assess progress by students and schools in incorporating the new Standards of Learning, the statewide curriculum standards passed in 1995.

Test writers from Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement of San Antonio are using the state standards to write tests for the same grades - three, five, eight and 11 - in the core areas of English, history, math and science. Computer and technology knowledge also will be tested in grades five and eight, and writing short essays will be required of students in grades five, eight and 11.

The first test will be a field test only - a test of the test questions - that won't count for or against students. It'll be given during the week of April 28 to May 2. Most students in each age group will be tested in only one subject area. No results will be reported, but they'll be used to refine the test and set standards for passing it.

Test results will be reported starting in spring 1998. They'll be a factor in accrediting public schools, and passing the 11th-grade test will be required for high-school graduation beginning with this fall's freshman class.

Such high stakes are one argument for objective multiple-choice tests with easy-to-defend results, the University of Virginia's Moon said. The new test should measure students on different thinking levels, since the new standards hit different levels, she said.

How good a test is depends on what it's intended to do, said Jack Campbell, a professor at Mount St. Mary's College in Emmitsburg, Md. Multiple-choice tests are good for some things, he said.

``Basically, if it comes down to how much content do they know, what basic knowledge do they know, these do it very well,'' Campbell said.

The public schools in his state, Maryland, however, went in another direction in 1993. They use what's called ``authentic assessment,'' or more open-ended testing using writing samples, conducting scientific experiments in groups and answering other questions that have more than one right answer, such as using math to design a garden.

The idea is that such skills - cooperation, problem-solving and so on - are what employers say are needed in the real work world, said Ronald A. Peiffer, assistant state superintendent for school and community outreach.

``It's not just that they know how to do math computations, but it's important to know they can use that in real-life situations,'' Peiffer said.

Teachers were specially trained to score the complicated tests. Parents complained about ``low'' scores, since standards were set high to provide a target for improvement. And the tests are pricey - $24 per child as opposed to $5 for an ``off-the-rack'' national-norm-type test. But Peiffer compared the cost to the $6,000 a year it costs to educate each child, and to the helpful information it provides schools on how they're doing.

``That's not a very large investment to get some quality control there,'' Peiffer said. ``No other standardized test we've had before has driven instruction, but this has.''

That's just one failure of basic multiple-choice tests, said the University of Kentucky's Kifer.

``One of the things you can't do is get the kids to give you reasons'' for their answers, Kifer said. ``Because finally it's not what you can regurgitate, but how you think about things that serves you well.

``I would rank multiple-choice tests last. And I would put writing tests, portfolios and performance tests way ahead of them. . . . It may well be the best test for them, but it may not be the best test for the kids.''

Echoing the view that multiple-choice tests don't accurately reflect what children know or can do is FairTest, a testing industry watchdog group in Cambridge, Mass. Worried about scores, teachers can feel pressure to favor teaching simply facts over problem-solving and analysis, said Monty Neill, an associate director.

``If your standards only call for memorization and recall, fine,'' Neill said. ``If your standards call for you to analyze information, synthesize, evaluate and apply information, these won't do that.''

``I would assume, in the end, that we'd want students to use knowledge in the real world.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic with color photo

THE DEBATE

The question is what kind of test - fact-based or open-ended -

best reflect what students need to learn.

For fact-based tests:

The state Board of Education and others say fact-based,

multiple-choice-type tests are more objective, less expensive and

easier to administer. The tests fit well with Virginia's new,

tougher, fact-based curriculum standards.

For open-ended tests:

Some educators say open-ended tests better measure how well

students think, analyze or problem-solve. Fact-based exams measure

mostly lower-level skills like memorization.

Graphic

SAMPLE QUESTIONS

Virginia Standards of Learning Assessment:

Grade three

Which word has the same vowel sound as make?

A. march

B. beak

C. rain

D. smack

C is correct

There were 28 school sweaters in the school store. Then 38 more

sweaters arrived. How many sweaters were in the store?

A. 10

B. 56

C. 66

D. 68

C is correct

Grade five

Ryan's teacher has asked each student to write a friendly letter

to a family member. Ryan wants to write a letter to his aunt, who

just sent him a book about Canada.

Ryan is not sure what he wants to say in his letter. Which of

these would best help him think of ideas?

A. Draw a picture of his new book

B. List things he'd like his aunt to know

C. Write the names of all his family members

D. Ask his teacher how long a friendly letter should be

B is best answer

On many computers, a blinking line or box displayed on the

monitor is called the -

A. blinking light

B. place holder

C. cursor

D. computer bookmark

C is correct

Grade eight

In sentence 17 (of a written passage), ``demand for used paper

goods cause'' is correctly written -

A. demand for used paper goods causes

B. demand for used paper goods are causing

C. demand for used paper goods have caused

D. as it is

A is correct

Jinn-Hwa has a bag containing 8 red marbles, 6 yellow marbles, 4

blue marbles, 3 green marbles, and 3 white marbles. If she picks 1

marble out of the bag without looking, what is the probability it

will be yellow?

A. 1/6

B. 1/5

C. 1/4

D. 1/3

C is correct

(A picture shows a man labeled ``citizen'' hoisting a barbell

over his head. The weight on one end of the barbell is labeled

``powers denied to government;'' the other, ``Bill of Rights.'')

Which of the following belongs on the weight labeled ``Bill of

Rights?''

A. No ex post facto law can be passed

B. The president serves as commander in chief

C. Amendments can be added to the Constitution

D. Unreasonable searches and seizures are prohibited

D is correct

Grade 11

The velocity, ``v,'' in meters per second, of a projectile fired

into water is given by ``v equals 150 plus t minus (t-squared

divided by 5),'' where ``t'' is time in seconds. After how many

seconds is the velocity of the projectile equal to 0?

A. 25

B. 30

C. 50

D. 75

B is correct

Which of these was a result of the Meiji Restoration in Japan?

A. Return to feudal traditions

B. Move toward industrialization

C. Limit to Western influences

D. Adoption of Buddhism

B is correct

Source: Virginia Department of Education KEYWORDS: STANDARDIZED TEST

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