New California test score labels seek to transmit positivity

In a quest to help parents understand how their children really get in school – but don’t make them feel bad in the process – state officials are moving this week to change the way they describe students on standardized tests.

Student scores were classified in one of the four categories on California annual tests in mathematics, reading and science: exceeded standard; Standard set; Standard almost respected or standard not respected.

But the consortium that manages the smarter balanced test told Californian officials in a presentation last September that there was confusion on what these levels mean. The consortium – which includes the representation of California – has suggested new labels, according to state officials: advanced, competent, fundamental and inconsistent. The State Board of Education was ready to adopt them in November.

But concerns were raised by plea groups, which said that the terms of the two lower levels were confusing and potentially misleading. They also reprimanded the board of directors for not having asked for a contribution to the public, which the officials then agreed to do.

The process postponed the decision of Wednesday’s meeting of the State Board of Education, where managers can take into account the work of discussion groups which included students, parents, educators and defenders.

Some participants did not like the terms of origin that the standard almost encountered and did not fill with standard, calling them waves, according to a state report. Some have perceived the term for the lowest level as a failure and noted that it “was often received as discouraging or demotivating”, according to the report. And they did not like the foundation or the incoherent, saying again that the terms were confusing.

Another set of labels is also to be considered: although advances and competent remain unchanged, the names proposed for the two categories of lower score are basic and lower than the base.

The advocacy groups seem to support the last proposal, which the Council of State can adopt or modify more.

If it is approved, the new terms would be the same as those used for many other standardized tests, including the national assessment of educational progress or NAEP, known as the Bulletin of the country.

The debate on test labels occurs while the national and state scores remain low and have generally failed to recover from the 2019 pre -countryic levels. The results of mathematics and English tests of the fourth and eighth year students have been largely stable or have decreased nationally in the past two years – of the results almost the same in Los Angeles and California.

The current proposal “is a step forward to provide parents with a precise image of how their children behave in school,” said Natalie Wheatfall-Lum, director of education at Edtrust-West, a plea group based in Oakland. “However, our objective should be to provide clear descriptions of these labels so that parents can understand how much their children occur at school, recognizing that a state assessment is a way of measuring this.”

Since notes, teacher feedback and comparison with peers can be subjective or vary from class to class or from school to another, “the standardized score and its label could be important to shape the way students and parents understand the levels of students’ skills compared to a common standard,” said Sean F. Reardon Stanford. “To this end, (tests) should have simple and transparent labels.”

All the same, he added: “A score label with four categories once a year is a fairly coarse way to tell parents or students how they go. Teachers and schools can transmit information to parents much more frequently and with more nuances than state test report. »»

Test the debates; weak

California’s smarter balanced balance is computer -based. If students are doing well, the program sends more difficult questions to students. If the student reproduces badly, the program sends easier questions. The objective is to obtain a more precise reading of the skills of a student, but the test represents only an instantaneous of the performance of a student.

Experts recognize that the main objective of education is not high scores on standardized tests – which are an imperfect measurement of deep and relevant learning. However, tests provide a marker to help keep students, teachers and schools on skills to the skills that students are supposed to learn every year.

And by this marker, students in California and across the country could do much better.

Not only do few students mark as advanced or competent, but less reach the version of this test of a basic classification, the following declining level, according to the overall results of NAEP.

On the most recent results of this test, for example, the percentage of students from Los Angeles who marked as competent or better in fourth year mathematics was 27%. For California, it was 35%.

In fourth year reading, 25% of Los Angeles students were tested or better. The California rate was 29%.

On California’s tests, students’ competence rates are higher, but still largely levels of pre-countryic success which were themselves considered unacceptable at the time.

And yet, this reality is associated with research indicating that parents think that their children are doing fairly well at school – perhaps because of grade inflation.

What do labels mean?

The two cycles of changes offered were intended to bring clarity. There was also an objective of expressing students’ performance in a positive way – called an “based on assets” approach – even if the scores themselves are weak.

Thus, rather than sending the standard of Standard not respected, the term proposed in November was incoherent. A member of the board of directors suggested that this term could also be too negative. Maybe “developing” was a better choice.

Even the original terms had euphemous elements.

The almost respected sentence standard, for example, includes a wide range of scores – some who were in fact almost competent and others that almost varied in the lowest category.

In the November proposal, the fundamental and inconsistent basis led to strong external objections.

“We are deeply worried,” wrote the groups, which included Edtrust-West, Children Now, California Charter Schools Assn., Alliance for a Better Community and Teach Plus.

“The reality we face is that many students in California are faced with important challenges when it comes to complying with school level standards, in particular many low -income students, colored students, English learners and students with learning differences,” said the letter. “The modifications proposed to these descriptions of level of success would make the data more confusing and misleading.”

Call fundamental or inconsistent scores “will only observe the data and make it even more difficult for families and defenders to identify the needs of our most un served students and ensure that they have the support necessary to prosper.”

An apparent compromise

If approved, the new categories are “the set of the most common labels in the 50 states,” said Morgan Polikoff, professor of education at the USC Rossier School of Education, who was not involved in the decision. “My personal preference would probably be any states as possible to use coherent labels.”

The last proposal is an improvement, said Robin Lake, director of the center on the reinvention of public education at Arizona State University.

“I wonder if what can be a slight improvement in clarity is a distraction of the real problem: solving the fact that California students do not master main materials.”

The four success labels used by NAEP will not mean exactly the same if they are adopted in California. In general, NAEP labels represent a more rigorously evaluated examination. Advanced or competent are more difficult to perform on NAEP than on Californian tests on the basis of research that compared state tests to NAEP national exams.

In addition, the discussion at the Reunion of the Council of State in November included the concept that students who are lower than skills should always be considered by the public as working at the school level – even if they may need additional support to achieve school level standards.

This management alarmed the defenders who said that families have a clear message when their child does not competent.

Overall, state tests offer more precise control than NAEP on what students in California are supposed to learn. The NAEP test, on the other hand, tests a small sample of students to allow state -based comparisons and does not send student scores to families.

This is what is happening with the information that is ultimately important, said Thomas Kane, professor of education and economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

If teachers explain to parents what a weak score means, “parents are more likely to listen to the teacher of their child than to take a letter of government form that arrives by post. But it is a difficult conversation to have and many teachers avoid it. This would benefit teachers, parents and students to provide an excuse (i.e..