Have you ever ‘fixed’ a test for any reason? This is an extremely emotive question and I wouldn’t blame any of you for not answering. Personally, there’s absolutely no advantage to me fixing test scores or manipulating results, so I’ve never been in the situation in which the teachers described in this New York Times article found themselves:
The staff of Normandy Crossing Elementary School outside Houston eagerly awaited the results of state achievement tests this spring. For the principal and assistant principal, high scores could buoy their careers at a time when success is increasingly measured by such tests. For fifth-grade math and science teachers, the rewards were more tangible: a bonus of $2,850.
But when the results came back, some seemed too good to be true. Indeed, after an investigation by the Galena Park Independent School District, the principal, assistant principal and three teachers resigned May 24 in a scandal over test tampering.
The district said the educators had distributed a detailed study guide after stealing a look at the state science test by “tubing” it — squeezing a test booklet, without breaking its paper seal, to form an open tube so that questions inside could be seen and used in the guide. The district invalidated students’ scores.
In a way, I see this as a symptom of what you get when you judge educational success on test scores and offer bonuses accordingly.
Over on the ELT World forum, poster Thelmadatter posed the following questions:
- If teachers are “teaching to the test,” why are some finding cheating necessary?
- If standardized tests are worthless, why do students who come from countries such as China, where standardized tests are the norm, kick the West’s ass in areas such as math and science? Why do I see a competence difference between English students who score 450 on the TOEFL institutional test and those who score 550?
- If standardized testing does not give an outside objective measure of student progress, how do you propose we do so? I realize I made this question with the assumption that outside evaluation is necessary. I believe this because too many people have complaints with the results of public education. While I might sound like an old fuddy-duddy, students are graduating today with pathetic skills, making them useless or nearly useless for many jobs.
Any thoughts on this matter? Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve ‘tipped the scales‘ a little too much in the direction of your students?
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Actually, I tampered with the exams quite a bit at the old horrid yellow school I used to work at a couple years back. The tests were so abominable that I couldn’t use them for anything. Actually, if followed, they usually resulted in every single student passing the class, which is why we often had elementary level students in our advanced classes.
The majority of the time I simply created my own grading system based on participation and class projects. I also heavily weighted the speaking section of the class (class weeks were split into blocks at this school), which ensured those that were actually coming to class, participating, and at the appropriate level could pass. My strategies for this changed and adapted over time. By and large it worked out as students who needed to stay back did so most of the time.
My situation was very different from the one mentioned above. Both, however, are good examples of why I advocate scrapping exams and moving to formative assessment without grades and numbers.
Thanks for that, Nick. I think what you’ve mentioned is really more a case of de-tampering with an exam to try and actually make it meaningful. Interesting.