Make state tests more useful to Ky. teachers

The Kentucky legislature is in session again with a new governor, and again we are hearing a debate about education standards and testing.

The proper purpose of student testing always has been to determine what students have learned and can do. This kind of testing is called quality control in the private sector. One should know the outcomes of processes used to achieve specific objectives. In education, this is achieved by asking students to demonstrate what they know and can do.

Criticism of student testing currently is focused on the state testing system which is designed to assess school effectiveness, not to improve learning. I suggest we change the focus and talk about how we can improve measurement of student performance every day in our classrooms.

Every teacher regularly measures what students know and can do. Student performance typically is measured by calculating a percentage of correct responses given on tests. However, this type of testing doesn’t tell the teacher anything about what contributed to unsatisfactory responses.

Compare this with what coaches do in basketball.

A shooter’s free-throw shooting proficiency is based on the percentage of “makes.” That’s fine for helping a coach decide who to play at the end of a close game. However, it has no value in developing a good foul shooter. The coach will watch the player actually shoot free throws and observe various elements of the shot, including foot stance, how the ball is cradled in the shooting hand and the loft of the shot.

These observations (assessments?) are essential to improving shooting skill. The coach needs to know what to focus on in practice to achieve the final objective — development of a reliable, high percentage free-throw shooter.

Effective teachers, like coaches, need to know why students fail to successfully demonstrate what they know and can do. Teachers could greatly enhance their ability to improve student performance if classroom tests with a diagnostic component were available to them.

So what would such a test look like?

It would first ask a student to demonstrate a knowledge or skill. If a student encounters difficulty, he/she is asked to report problems with the test item, such as not understanding what was requested, didn’t know how to do it, didn’t have enough time to do it or was not in class when the subject was taught. Most questions could be answered by simply checking boxes beneath each answer. It is possible such tests could be automated.

Given everything else we expect of teachers, it is too much to ask them to design their own assessment items with a diagnostic component. So what can be done? The state already invests significant dollars to develop school effectiveness tests. The next step would be to add a diagnostic component to each test item and make these items available for classroom assessment. Teachers would select from a database test items which are appropriate to what they just taught. They then would examine the related diagnostic information for specific students and use it for reteaching or remedial purposes.

This would eliminate the disconnect between the state test and tests teachers use in their classrooms. There would be no need for teachers to prepare students for the state test.

Obviously, there are many questions to be answered about how to design, develop and implement such a system, but I firmly believe this proposal is feasible with appropriate leadership and financing.

I urge the Kentucky General Assembly to authorize and finance a program to add a diagnostic component to the existing state school accountability system for use by all classroom teachers. It will take several years to develop a diagnostic component for all test-items, but the most important thing is to begin work on this important reform.

It’s time to stop demonizing student testing and create a holistic student assessment system which benefits everyone, but most of all students and their teachers.

This story was originally published March 6, 2016 at 2:52 PM with the headline "Make state tests more useful to Ky. teachers."