School testing
Related Topics
"Alvin E. Toda" a...@lava.net
Results from last session are out, and reported in Star-Bulletin http://www.techjobshawaii.org/newsletters/feb2003.html Am not surprised that Hawaii is choosing to use its own test rather than the SAT which is normed for the nation. Hawaii's kids have a cultural bias against themselves inherent in the test, and the results show Hawaii's scores pretty much the norm.
Ie the SAT is designed to be tougher for Hawaii's kids culturally, and it will always be normed. It's like a normalized curve. It will not show whether the kids meet or do not meet standards. In fact, with a good effort it might show that most students would be "proficient" rather than "approaching proficiency" as they do now. The distribution curve of the Hawaii seems to indicate that most of these in the midsection of the SAT curve could be the "approaching..." secion of the Hawaii distribution.
The papers seem to indicate that from the results of the Hawaii test, that Hawaii students are not doing well. But the SAT results seem to indicate that they are really average when compared with the nation. I would agree with the DOE that the Hawaii test is harder, but it will allow the kids to demonstrate improvement while the SAT test wont do that.
I think the normal methodology of doing tests like this is to interview students to put them in these high medium, low SAT groups. Then the battery of questions is analysed to throw out those questions which do not differentiate the three groups.
The remaining set of questions allow 23% in the low group of the control students who were interviewed and judged low by the examiners, and so on for medium and high students. So the high group may also be differentiated by other socialogical differences that represent previleged status as well as achievement.
For example, the high group may swim more and have more access to pools. So questions on water sports may help to distinguish them from the other groups. Similarly, many kids here don't have exposure to winters sports so that kind of questions could lower Hawaii scores.
As long as the test is designed this way, it would be likely that Hawaii would be unlikely to ever be able to do any better than the norm, or curve no matter how much the effort.
Testing to standards make sense. The schools should be able to show progress under this kind of testing.
--alvin
"Lana" lanaicecr...@hotmail.com
One problem is that the students wont be prepared to compete academically with those on the continental U.S. so why change the standards or in this case... why lower the standards for kids in the islands? For me its not a good idea to use another test which is the standard on the continental U.S.
Its a disservice to the kids in Hawaii.
"Jerry Okamura" okamuraj...@hawaii.rr.com
Besides, when these kids are ready to go to college, they are going to have to do well on their SAT's in order to get into the better colleges. At the school my children attended, they started taking SAT's every year, starting at the seventh grade (as I recall).
marzu ...@cs.ucsd.edu (Keith Marzullo)
on the other hand, SATs are under pressure to change; the premise of one being able to measure someone's "scholastic aptitude" is being seen by many to be flawed, including by dick atkinson (then president of the University of California). If the college board doesn't change their exams, and if there is continued pressure to drop affirmative action, then there's a good chance that the SAT will cease being used for admissions by top state universities.
i couldn't find the article alvin was referring to when i followed his link :-( aloha, keith <>...
"Alvin E. Toda" a...@lava.net
Actually the Hawaii is a harder test than the standardized norm test. You will note that they did worse on the Hawaii test.
But it is one that all kids can be eventually expected to p***. When you "grade" on a curve, somebody always has to fail, even if they are proficient in the standards. It's also a worse "disservice" to have the kids take a test with built-in cultural bias against them.
--alvin
"Alvin E. Toda" a...@lava.net
Are you refering the Scholastic Aptitude test which high school students take for college, or are you referring to the Stanford Achievement Test which Hawaii K-12 schools also give to some students to measure achievement? Perhaps you are referring to both???
--alvin
"Alvin E. Toda" a...@lava.net
Sorry Keith...don't know how that link got in my machine.
http://starbulletin.com/2003/02/07/news/index1.html This link will also connect you with the scores for all the schools in the state. Something to compare schools by. BTW, it's a different SAT than the college test. I think it stands for Stanford Achievement Test.
--alvin
"Jerry Okamura" okamuraj...@hawaii.rr.com
Do these tests grade by a "curve" or do these test simply indicate in what percentile that student is in? As for cultural bias, I thought we all lived in the United States of America. What is the purpose of testing in the first place. Let me suggest, the idea of testing is to demonstrate ones ability to survive in this country.
marzu ...@cs.ucsd.edu (Keith Marzullo)
hi alvin, thanks for the correct link! yup, the stanford achievement test is a commonly used high school test. some colleges accept it for evidence of background of home taught students...
hum, i really like the philosophy behind the hawaii test, even though it's got to be a bear to grade. being taught towards this test should give a real advantage to hawaiian students against mainland ones.
keith
"Alvin E. Toda" a...@lava.net
Yes and no. They are percentile. But the bottom percentile is labeled "low". The other two labels are "medium" and "high". The "low" label does not mean the students are proficient or not. But the public thinks so. On the Hawaii test, the low score is an indication that educational standards are not being met.
Why not also have a test on how to balance your checkbook? Some pretty smart people have a hard time doing that. You're asking too much of tests.
--alvin
marzu ...@cs.ucsd.edu (Keith Marzullo)
hi jerry, i don't think that achievement tests are ever "curved", for the reasons you say.
it's true, hawaii is part of the US, but curriculum is defined by the state, not at the national level. (we could debate whether this is a good thing or not; it's a states right thing.) as long as it's the state that defines the curriculum, it should be the state that defines the test.
if the curriculum has been geared for the local population, then the test should too.
this test looks a lot better than others i've seen; i'd love to have my students having p***ed this one.
aloha, keith
"Alvin E. Toda" a...@lava.net
Hi Keith...The state DOE has had voluminous documents on goals and measureable objectives. But teachers can ignore it, and worse yet, students suffer no adverse consequences and are p***ed onward, until they graduate. Those at the bottom who make no effort, are missing out.
The test imposes the end goal without dictating the style of instruction. It gives curriculum freedom to the teacher and school--even if it is a charter school.
But students are held accountable for these objectives before they can p*** to the next stage. Nice thing is that it's not a curve type of test with tricky questions. The whole system and all students have a chance to be proficient and meet standards.
--alvin
"Jerry Okamura" okamuraj...@hawaii.rr.com
Let me suggest that is not a common definition of what grading by the "curve" means. Grading by the "curve" means that even if all of your students are in the very top percentile, that some will receive an "A" and some will receive a lower grade, based on where they are in the cl*** (and visa versa). And if we are really talking about a real "curve" that means that some will always receive an "F". Whereas a test that shows what percentile you fall in on the entire population who is taking the test is simply a statistical truth.
Come on Alvin, we were talking about cultural bias.
"Jerry Okamura" okamuraj...@hawaii.rr.com
What is the purpose os a test, any test, in this regard. It is one to measure how well the student understands the subject that the powers to be deem are important, and to see if they have the knowledge to continue on to college. If the test in Hawaii, accomplishes both goals, then I have no problems with the test. If on the other hand, it does not help them in getting a high score in the all important SAT's, then they are doing the students of this state a disservice.
marzu ...@cs.ucsd.edu (Keith Marzullo)
alvin, i agree. i'm no fan of the prez, but i think that the education program he pushed for early in his term was good.
i wonder who was behind the hawaii test?
keith
marzu ...@cs.ucsd.edu (Keith Marzullo)
hi jerry, remember that the SAT referred to in this article is the stanford-
binet achievement test, and not the scholastic aptitude test. it's too bad that they are both abbreviated "SAT". the first SAT is rarely used by college admissions, and the latter is (but its use is now controversial because it has been demonstrated that it doesn't actually test aptitude). alvin caught me on this.
the hawaii test is nice, i think, because it gives weight to problem solving - that is, how one reasons. it's true that you want a student to know facts, but at the high school level much of what a student learns is how to approach problems (how to communicate an idea, or how to solve a geometric problem, or how to debate a position). at my level in the food chain, i appreciate students who have these basics down, so we can concentrate on specialized techniques (in my field, logic, recursion, measures of complexity, algorithms).
i'm not trying to be touchy-feely: a school can teach these ideas using traditional methods (it's been done for years). but, hawaii can decide that they want to teach in a culturally sensitive manner, and still teach these ideas; that's fine too. using the hawaii test as a metric for improving education (as is required by the national "no child behind" requirement) seems great to me - it means that hawaii decided to emphasize the skills that would make a student a success in college.
cheers, keith
"Alvin E. Toda" a...@lava.net
Keith...it comes from the Department of Education, but that doesn't answer your question. But they do have the resouces in staff, as well as the capabillity to hire consultants. Also, the DOE has published volumes of measureable objectives on the whole range of curricula for years. So it might have been just be a matter of committees from different schools picking and choosing.
The state has won awards on this effort. But without testing, and just using the document as a guide for programs, the effort hasn't yieded good results. The last State Superintendent LaMehieu who had consulted with the state on these objectives, was an expert in testing. And I think it was reported that Dr.
LaMehieu personally lead the effort to trim these to about a thousand or two. He was about ready to lead efforts to do testing, but a teacher's strike intervened and then he resigned because of a scandal involving him and a woman contractor with the DOE.
We're finally back on track after about 4 years.
--alvin
| To Top |