Two tensions in testing

16 Dec Two tensions in testing

By Dale Chu

Last week, the Collaborative for Student Success and Education Week held a special event to mark the four-year anniversary of the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Participants took stock of the law’s impact thus far, and of the many conversations that took place, it became clear that for better or for worse, ESSA will be the nation’s education law of the land for the foreseeable future.

During the opening plenary, Senator Lamar Alexander, one of the key architects of ESSA, expressed his regrets around the innovative assessments provision of the law—specifically lamenting the failure of more states to take advantage of the opportunity to push the assessment envelope. (As it stands, only four states—Louisiana, New Hampshire, Georgia, and North Carolina—have signed up for the federal testing pilot). The panel discussion I helped to kick off later that afternoon took up the senator’s concern, as well as related issues on the current and future of state assessments.

In particular, two key tensions that surfaced during the assessment discussion are worth mulling over. The first was a question of political motives; the second was one of human nature.

On the first, states have the prerogative to switch assessments as they see fit, but it’s a mistake when they do so solely based on political reasons. To wit, New Mexico’s sudden dropping of PARCC has resulted in a rapid-fire succession of assessments that could have been anticipated and avoided. There’s still an opportunity for the state to do the right thing with their new assessment vendor, but it will require a focus on test quality rather than blind politics.

On the second, there’s a tension between making assessments better versus how much that ultimately matters in light of human nature. NWEA recently announced a new effort on through-year testing that they believe would obviate the need for a summative, year-end assessment. (Read more about it here and here). They are currently exploring this solution with the state of Nebraska, outside the auspices of the federal innovative assessment pilot. Assuming they can crack this nut, will it be enough? A counterpoint to this theory of action is that the problem being solved for (i.e., tests are too long and too high-stakes) is not a test design issue—which falls squarely within NWEA’s bailiwick—but one of human nature. In other words, when state accountability is placed on a formative assessment, it becomes far less useful as an instructional tool. Agree or disagree, the question of whether the assessment debate is primarily one of craft versus one of politics is an issue I’ve previously raised (and will continue to) in these pages.

Not only did the assessment conversation exceed the allotted time, it could have taken up the entire afternoon given both the expertise of the speakers and the multifaceted complexities involved. The panel discussion—ably moderated by Education Week’s Evie Blad—featured North Dakota’s state schools superintendent Kirsten Baesler and NewMexicoKidsCAN’s Amanda Aragon, followed by discrete presentations from NWEA’s Chris Minnich, Cognia’s Stephen Murray, and Curriculum Associates’ Rob Waldron.

You can read more about last week’s event by clicking here.