Schools and Standardized Testing

Posted on March 9, 2011 by townsend

• When test scores seem too good to believe, By Greg Toppo, Denise Amos, Jack Gillum and Jodi Upton, March 6, 2011, USA Today: “Scott Mueller seemed to have an uncanny sense about what his students should study to prepare for upcoming state skills tests. By 2010, the teacher had spent his 16-year career entirely at Charles Seipelt Elementary School. Like other Seipelt teachers, Mueller regularly wrote study guides for his classes ahead of state tests. On test day last April, several fifth-graders immediately recognized some of the questions on their math tests. The questions were the same as those on the study guide Mueller had given out the day before. Some numbers on the actual tests were identical to those in the study guide and the questions were in the same order, the kids told other Seipelt teachers. The report of possible cheating quickly reached district officials, who put Mueller on paid leave. He initially denied any wrongdoing. Ultimately, investigators concluded that Mueller had looked at questions for both fifth-grade math and science tests in advance – a violation of testing rules – and then copied them, sometimes word for word, into a school computer to develop his study guides…”
• When test scores don’t add up: 32 metro Detroit schools show improvements too good to be true, By Peggy Walsh-Sarnecki, Chastity Pratt Dawsey and Kristi Tanner-White, March 6, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “Each year, millions of children in Michigan and across the nation take state standardized tests that impact everything from a school’s reputation to how teachers will be evaluated to whether schools will even survive. The pressures to perform, experts say, tempt some school administrators and teachers to cheat. The Free Press, as part of a nationwide investigation with USA TODAY and other partners, analyzed millions of test score results and found that 34 schools across Michigan — 32 of them in metro Detroit — showed test score gains over a one-year period that experts say are statistically improbable. More broadly, the analysis found 304 schools in six states and the District of Columbia that had test scores so improbable, they should be investigated. Besides Michigan, the states were Arizona, Colorado, California, Florida and Ohio…”