Beyond the Bubble Test E-Book

Linda Darling-Hammond

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 758

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Performance assessment is a hot topic in school systems, and educators continue to analyze its costs, benefits, and feasibility as a replacement for high-stakes testing. Until now, researchers and policymakers have had to dig to find out what we know and what we still have to learn about performance assessment. Beyond the Bubble Test: How Performance Assessments Support 21st Century Learning synthesizes the latest findings in the field, and not a moment too soon. Statistics indicate that the United States is in danger of falling behind if it fails to adapt to our changing world. The memory and recall strategies of traditional testing are no longer adequate to equip our students with the skills they need to excel in the global economy. Instead teachers need to engage students in deeper learning, assessing their ability to use higher-order skills. Skills like synthesizing information, understanding evidence, and critical problem-solving are not achieved when we teach to multiple-choice exams. Examples in Beyond the Bubble Test paint a useful picture of how schools can begin to supplement traditional tests with something that works better. This book provides new perspectives on current performance assessment research, plus an incisive look at what's possible at the local and state levels. Linda Darling-Hammond, with a team of leading scholars, bring together lessons learned, new directions, and solid recommendations into a single, readily accessible compendium. Beyond the Bubble Test situates the current debate on performance assessment within the context of testing in the United States. This comprehensive resource also looks beyond our U.S. borders to Singapore, Hong Kong, and other places whose reform-mindedness can serve as an example to us.

Leseprobe

Contents

Acknowledgments

The Authors

Chapter 1: Introduction: The Rationale and Context for Performance Assessment

The Need for Performance Assessments

The Return of Performance Assessment

The Challenges for New Assessments

The Purpose of this Book

Note

Part One: Through a Looking Glass: Performance Assessment Past, Present, and Future

Chapter 2: Looking Back: Performance Assessment in an Era of Standards-Based Educational Accountability

Arguments for Performance Assessment

Defining Performance Assessment

Types of Performance Assessments

Recent History of Performance Assessment in Large-Scale Testing

Research Findings

Current Examples of Large-Scale Performance Assessments

Performance Assessment in the Context of Standards-Based Accountability

Recommendations

Notes

Chapter 3: Where We Are Now: Lessons Learned and Emerging Directions

A Context for Considering Performance Assessment

Building on Current State Performance Assessment Models

Promising and Emerging Assessment Practices

Lessons Learned from Current and Emerging Performance Assessments

A Proposal for New State Systems of Assessment

Conclusion

Chapter 4: Reaching Out: International Benchmarks for Performance Assessment

Finland

Sweden

England

Australia

Singapore

Hong Kong

International Baccalaureate Diploma Program

Conclusion

Part Two: Advances in Performance Assessment: Assessing and Supporting Learning

Chapter 5: Performance Assessment: The State of the Art

Design of Performance Assessments

Evaluating the Validity and Fairness of Performance Assessment

Additional Psychometric Issues

Conclusion

Chapter 6: Adapting Performance Assessments for English Language Learners

Performance Assessments and English Language Learners

How Performance Assessments Can Be Made Most Valid for ELLs

Scoring Performance Assessment Tasks

Using Performance Assessments to Improve Teaching Quality

Informing Teaching through Performance Assessment

Assessing English Language Proficiency

Classroom Performance Assessment in Action

Conclusion

Chapter 7: Supporting Teacher Learning through Performance Assessment

Teacher Engagement in Assessment in High-Performing Countries

Teachers’ Involvement in Performance Assessment in the United States

Current Performance Assessment Initiatives

Learning from Scoring

Moving from a Culture of Testing to a Culture of Teaching

Conclusion

Notes

Part Three: Policy and Performance Assessment: Developing Systems That Can Work

Chapter 8: A New Conceptual Framework for Cost Analysis

Framework for Categorizing Assessments

Measuring the Costs of Assessment

Addressing the Benefits of Performance Assessment

Establishing a Framework for Identification of Costs and Expenditures

An Evidence-Based Model of School Finance

Conclusion

Notes

Chapter 9: Investing in Assessments of Deeper Learning: The Costs and Benefits of Tests That Help Students Learn

The Challenges for New Assessments

Evaluating Investments in Assessment

What Do We Actually Spend for Testing Today?

Realizing the Benefits of High-Quality Assessments

Conclusion

Notes

Chapter 10: Building Systems of Assessment for Deeper Learning

Assessing Where We’ve Been and Where We Are Going

Defining College and Career Readiness

Developing Systems of Assessment

Why Is a System of Assessments Important?

How Might States Develop Systems of Assessment?

A Continuum of Assessments

How Can Assessment Be Made Useful for Students as Well as Adults?

New Systems of Accountability

Conclusion and Recommendations

Notes

Chapter 11: Concluding Thoughts: Creating Next-Generation Assessments That Last

New Opportunities

Challenges and Lessons

Policy Recommendations

Conclusion

Appendix A: State Performance Tasks

Appendix B: New Approaches to Performance Assessment

Appendix C: A Framework for Measuring the Costs, Expenditures, and Benefits of Performance Assessment

Appendix D: Spending for Interim Testing at the Local District Level

References

Name Index

Subject Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Figure 1.1 How the Demand for Skills Has Changed: Economy-Wide Measures of Routine and Nonroutine Task Input

Figure 5.1 BioKids Assessment Tasks for Formulating Scientific Explanations Using Evidence

Figure 6.1 Electric Mysteries Performance Assessment

Figure 6.2 A NAEP Math Item for Eighth Graders

Figure 6.3 A Linguistically Modified NAEP Multiple-Choice Item

Figure 9.1 Per Pupil Assessment Costs

Figure 9.2 Expenditures per Student for a High-Quality Assessment (HQA)

Figure 9.3 Average per Pupil Costs for State and Local Tests in ELA and Math, 2012

Figure 10.1 Four Keys to College and Career Readiness

Figure 10.2 Competencies to Be Developed and Assessed

Figure 10.3 Relative Emphasis on Assessment Purposes

Figure 10.4 Assessment Continuum

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Classification Based on Task Structural Characteristics

Table 3.1 State Use of Performance Assessments at the Secondary Level

Table 4.1 Examples of International Assessment Systems

Table 4.2 General Objectives and Standards for Physics in Queensland

Table 5.1 BEAR Assessment System Construct Map for the Matter Strand in Chemistry

Table 5.2 Holistic General Scoring Rubric for Mathematics Constructed-Response Items

Table 5.3 BEAR Assessment System Scoring Guide for the Matter Strand in Chemistry

Table 5.4 Knowledge Integration Scoring Rubric

Table 6.1 Performance Task Item, Modified for Linguistic Access

Table 8.1 Dimensions of Costs and Expenditures for Performance Assessments

Table 9.1 Estimated Costs for State Tests Plus Local Interim Testing

Table 9.2 Assessment Costs under Different Teacher Scoring Assumptions

Table 10.1 Queensland’s System of Assessments

Table C.1 A Framework for Measuring the Costs, Expenditures, and Benefits of Performance Assessment—Formative Assessment

Table C.2 A Framework for Measuring the Costs, Expenditures, and Benefits of Performance Assessment—Benchmark Assessment

Table C.3 A Framework for Measuring the Costs, Expenditures, and Benefits of Performance Assessment—Summative Assessment

Table D.1 California: State Testing Costs Plus District Costs for Interim and Benchmark Tests

Table D.2 Kentucky: State Testing Costs Plus District Costs for Interim and Benchmark Tests

Table D.3 Massachusetts District Costs for Interim and Benchmark Tests

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Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Beyond the Bubble Test

How Performance Assessments Support 21st Century Learning

Linda Darling-Hammond

Frank Adamson

Cover design by Wiley

Cover photograph © BrianAJackson | Thinkstock

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book summarizes research and lessons learned regarding the development, implementation, and consequences of performance assessments. The volume examines experiences with and lessons from large-scale performance assessment in the United States and abroad, including technical advances, feasibility issues, teacher engagement, policy implications, uses with English Language Learners, and costs.

The work was guided by an Advisory Board of education researchers, practitioners, and policy analysts, ably chaired by Richard Shavelson. The board shaped specifications for commissioned papers that became some of these chapters and reviewed these papers upon their completion. We are grateful to Advisory Board members Eva Baker, Christopher Cross, Nicholas Donahue, Michael Feuer, Edward Haertel, Jack Jennings, Peter McWalters, Lorrie Shepard, Guillermo Solano-Flores, Brenda Welburn, and Gene Wilhoit.

The contributors to this book would like to thank all the educators and other innovators over many years who have devoted hundreds of thousands of hours to developing and implementing thoughtful curriculum and assessments that support students and teachers in their learning. We would also like to thank Barbara McKenna, who ably ushered earlier versions of these papers into production, Sonya Keller for her very helpful and thorough editorial assistance, and Samantha Brown for her help securing permissions for the entries in this volume.

A number of chapters in this volume (2–6 and 8–11) draw in part on papers that were previously published by the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. In addition, chapter 7 draws on a paper published by the Center for American Progress. All are included here with permission.

Research for this volume was supported by the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Nellie Mae Educational Foundation, and the Sandler Foundation, to whom we are grateful. The opinions expressed in this book do not necessarily reflect the position of any of these organizations.

THE AUTHORS

Jamal Abedi, professor of education at the University of California, Davis, specializes in educational and psychological assessments. His research focus is testing for English language learners and issues concerning the technical characteristics and interpretations of these assessments. From 2010 to the present, Abedi has served as a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium. Before then, he served on the expert panel of the US Department of Education’s LEP Partnership and he was founder and chair of AERA’s Special Interest Group on Inclusion and Accommodation in Large-Scale Assessment. In 2008, the California Educational Research Association gave him its Lifetime Achievement Award. Abedi received his PhD from Vanderbilt University.

Frank Adamson, a policy and research analyst at the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE), currently focuses on the adoption of assessments of deeper learning and twenty-first-century skills at the state, national, and international levels. He also conducts research on educational equity and opportunities to learn and has published on teacher salary differences within labor markets in New York and California. Prior to joining SCOPE, Adamson worked at AIR and SRI International designing assessments, evaluating US education initiatives, and developing international indicators for the OECD and UNESCO. He received an MA in sociology and a PhD in international comparative education from Stanford University.

Jillian Chingos (previously Jillian Hamma) is currently a sixth-grade teacher at Alpha: Blanca Alvarado Middle School in San Jose, California. Chingos attended Dartmouth College, where she majored in English, minored in public policy, and received her teaching credential. She previously worked at the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity, developing and researching performance assessments.

David T. Conley is professor of educational policy and leadership and founder and director of the Center for Educational Policy Research (CEPR) at the University of Oregon. He is also the founder, chief executive officer, and chief strategy officer of the Educational Policy Improvement Center and president of CCR Consulting Group, both in Eugene and Portland, Oregon. Through these organizations, he conducts research on a range of topics related to college readiness and other key policy issues with funding provided by grants and contracts from a range of national organizations, states, school districts, and school networks. His line of inquiry focuses on what it takes for students to succeed in postsecondary education. His latest publication, Getting Ready for College, Careers, and the Common Core, was recently published by Jossey Bass (for more information, see www.collegecareerready.com).

Linda Darling-Hammond is Charles E. Ducommun professor of education and faculty director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education at Stanford University. Darling-Hammond is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and a member of the National Academy of Education. Her research and policy work focus on issues of educational equity, teaching quality, school reform, and performance assessment. In 2008, she served as director of President Obama’s education policy transition team. Her book The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future received the coveted Grawemeyer Award in 2012. Her most recent book is Getting Teacher Evaluation Right: What Really Matters for Effectiveness and Improvement (2013).

Beverly Falk is professor and director of the graduate programs in early childhood education at the School of Education, City College of New York. Her areas of expertise include early childhood education, early literacy, performance assessment, school change, teacher education, and teacher research. She has served in a variety of educational roles: classroom teacher; school founder and director; district administrator; and consultant, fellow, and leader in schools, districts, states, and national organizations. Currently she is editor of the New Educator and senior scholar at the Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity. Falk received her EdD from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Ann Jaquith is associate director at Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. She has worked on a variety of performance assessment projects undertaken to reform schools in New York, Ohio, and California. As a former teacher and administrator, her expertise is in building the instructional and leadership capacity needed to use performance assessments to improve instruction and student learning. Her research interests include studying how instructional capacity gets built at different levels of the system and examining the practices professional development providers use that change instruction and improve student learning. She received her PhD in curriculum and teacher education from Stanford University.

Stuart Kahl is founding principal and CEO of Measured Progress as Advanced Systems in Measurement and Evaluation. A former elementary and secondary teacher, he worked for the Education Commission of the States, the University of Colorado, and RMC Research Corporation. A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Kahl also serves as a technical consultant to various education agencies. He has been recognized for his work in the areas of standard setting for non-multiple-choice instruments and the alignment of curriculum and assessment. Kahl received his PhD from the University of Colorado.

Suzanne Lane is professor at the University of Pittsburgh. Her recent research focuses on the implications for the next generation of assessments based on the lessons from classroom instruction and achievement in the 1990s, the assessment of twenty-first-century thinking skills, and the interplay among a theory of action, validity, and consequences. Lane has been the president of the National Council on Measurement in Education (2003–2004) and vice president of Division D of the American Educational Research Association (2002–2003). She received a PhD in research methodology, measurement, and statistics from the University of Arizona.

William Montague is a student at the University of Virginia School of Law. He began his career as a high school English teacher in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, as a member of Teach For America. He went on to work for Independent Education, an association of independent schools in the Washington, DC, area. While there, he collaborated on a number of projects with the organization’s executive director, Thomas Toch, a longtime education writer and policy analyst. Montague received his BA from the University of Virginia, where he majored in economics and history.

John Olson is senior partner of Assessment Solutions Group (ASG), which he cofounded in 2008. He is also president of the consulting business he founded in 2006, Olson Educational Measurement and Assessment Services, which provides technical assistance and support to states, school districts, federal bodies, testing companies, researchers, and others. He has more than thirty years of experience managing and consulting on a variety of measurement and statistical issues for international, national, state, and local assessment programs through his work at Harcourt Assessment, the Council for Chief State School Officers, the American Institutes for Research, and the Education Statistics Services Institute. He served in a number of leadership roles for the National Assessment of Educational Progress at the Educational Testing Service. Olson holds a PhD in educational statistics and measurement from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Margaret Owens is currently a teacher at Mission High School in San Francisco. She earned her teaching credential and MA from Stanford University. Her studies focused on new pedagogical strategies, such as complex instruction, that bring more collaboration and engagement to students historically alienated in mathematics. Prior to her teaching career, she studied political science at Stanford with a focus on American education.

Raymond Pecheone is professor of practice at Stanford University and the founder and executive director of the Stanford Center for Assessment Learning, and Equity (SCALE). Under Pecheone, SCALE focuses on the development of performance assessments and performance-based systems for students, teachers, and administrators at the school, district, and state levels. Prior to launching SCALE, Pecheone was the bureau chief for curriculum, research, and assessment in the Connecticut State Department of Education; codirector of the first Assessment Development Lab for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; and project director to support the redesign of the New York State Regents. Most recently, Pecheone and SCALE are developing the performance assessment specifications and tasks for the Smarter Balanced national assessment system. He received his PhD from the University of Connecticut in measurement and evaluation.

Lawrence O. Picus is vice dean for faculty affairs and professor at the Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California. He is an expert in the area of public financing of schools, equity and adequacy of school funding, school business administration, education policy, linking school resources to student performance, and resource allocation in schools. His current research interests focus on adequacy and equity in school finance, as well as efficiency and productivity in the provision of educational programs for PreK–12 children. Picus is past president of the Association for Education Finance and Policy, has served on the EdSource board of directors for twelve years, and has consulted extensively on school finance issues in more than twenty states. He earned a PhD in public policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School, an MA in social science from the University of Chicago, and a BA in economics from Reed College.

Ed Roeber is a consultant at Assessment Solutions Group (ASG). He has served as state assessment director in the Michigan Department of Education, director of student assessment programs for the Council for Chief State School Officers, vice president of Measured Progress, and adjunct professor at Michigan State University. For ASG and the other organizations, he advises states and other organizations on student assessment-related programs and functions. Currently he is a consultant on student assessment to several organizations (Michigan Assessment Consortium, Michigan State University, and Wisconsin Center for Educational Research/University of Wisconsin). He has written extensively about educational assessment, consulted with a number of agencies and organizations, and spoken frequently about student assessment. He has a PhD in educational measurement from the University of Michigan.

Brian Stecher is a senior social scientist and associate director of RAND Education and professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His research focuses on measuring educational quality and evaluating education reforms, with an emphasis on assessment and accountability systems. During his more than twenty years at RAND, he has directed prominent national and state evaluations of No Child Left Behind, mathematics and science systemic reforms, and class size reduction. His measurement-related expertise includes test development, test validation, and the use of assessments for school improvement. Stecher has served on expert panels relating to standards, assessments, and accountability for the National Academies and is currently a member of the Board on Testing and Assessment. He received his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Thomas Toch is senior managing partner for public policy engagement at the Carnegie Foundation. He also serves as director of the Carnegie Foundation’s Washington, DC, office. He is a founder and former codirector of the think tank Education Sector and a former guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, and he has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He helped launch Education Week in the 1980s. He spent a decade as the senior education correspondent at US News and World Report and has contributed to the Atlantic, the New York Times, and other national publications. His work has twice been nominated for National Magazine Awards. He is the author of two books on American education, In the Name of Excellence (Oxford University Press) and High Schools on a Human Scale (Beacon Press).

Barry Topol is managing partner of Assessment Solutions Group (ASG). He leads ASG in providing assessment cost, management, and state accountability systems analysis and consulting to states, universities, and other nonprofit institutions. Since forming ASG in 2009, Topol and ASG have worked with a number of states and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, and Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium to assist them in designing their assessment and accountability systems to be more effective and efficient. Topol designed ASG’s assessment cost model, the only model in the industry that can be used to determine the appropriate price for any assessment. Topol has a BA in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MBA from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Laura Wentworth is director of the Stanford University/San Francisco Unified School District Partnership at Silver Giving Foundation. She focuses on supporting the link between research and practice, with special attention to the subject of assessment. As a public school teacher, she and other school leaders introduced the International Baccalaureate Primary Year Program, including the use of a portfolio assessment system for kindergarten through fifth grade. After her work as a teacher, she began researching issues in assessment, including policy issues for English learners, exit exam policies, and performance assessments. Currently she directs a university-district partnership aimed at helping practitioners use research to inform their decision making that includes several assessment projects. She received her PhD in education policy from Stanford University.

Chapter 1Introduction: The Rationale and Context for Performance Assessment

Linda Darling-Hammond

I am calling on our nation’s Governors and state education chiefs to develop standards and assessments that don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking, entrepreneurship and creativity.

—President Barack Obama, March 2009

Over the past decade, the effects of US test-driven accountability practices have been the focus of intense debate. Disappointment about the performance of US students on international tests, concern about the nation’s global competitiveness, and questions about our students’ readiness to enter college and the workforce have led to another wave of efforts to significantly reform American education.

A recurring theme in the public debate among educators, business leaders, elected officials, and community members is the need for schools to focus on a new and expanded skill set in order for American students to compete in a digital age. The discourse centers on the need to measure the core knowledge and higher-order skills critical to postsecondary learning and career success. In particular, growing emphasis on critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and communication skills has led to calls for a more balanced assessment system that includes authentic measures of student performance.

The United States is not alone in this pursuit. Reform of educational standards and assessments has been a constant theme in nations around the globe. New curriculum approaches and assessments have recently been adopted in Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom, among many others. For example, as Singapore prepared to overhaul its assessment system, its education minister at that time, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, noted, “[We need] less dependence on rote learning, repetitive tests and a ‘one size fits all’ type of instruction, and more on engaged learning, discovery through experiences, differentiated teaching, the learning of life-long skills, and the building of character, so that students can . . . develop the attributes, mindsets, character and values for future success” (Ng, 2008).