Well, hi there! This is Kimberly Swygert, and I’ll be providing a roundup of testing links and commentary every weekend here at Joanne Jacob’s blog.
If you’re unfamiliar with my work, I’m a psychometrician and work in the field of educational testing. I was also an edublogger from 2002 - 2006, and you can just hit the link above to access my entire archives. For those of you who do know me, let me just say that I hated having to give up my blog. I knew that I couldn’t commit the time to do it every day, and do it well, and in the end giving it up turned out to be the best decision for me — but boy, have I missed you guys! I missed the daily fun of finding links, churning out commentary, starting a few controversies, and discovering new readers. My hat’s off to all bloggers who have stuck with it over the years.
Here on Joanne’s blog I’ll be focusing on “the week in testing,” so I’ll try not to descend too much into the cats, the goths, the music, and the silliness for which N2P was, I think, sometimes known. If I feel a really silly post coming on, I’ll go back over to N2P to post it, so I’m not taking up Joanne’s real estate for that.
On to the links…
Wow, I don’t remember any parties when I had to take tests in school. Missouri is implementing a science exam for the first time, although it won’t count towards the goals, and a “MAP Camp” was instituted to provide extra tutoring in math and reading. The most recent Nation’s Report Card shows Missouri ranked as similar to the national average in both fourth-grade reading and mathematics.
The San Jose Mercury News has an article investigating the cultural pressures that may be impacting the “achievement gap” between students of different ethnicities on the California Standards Test and in the classroom. While in some schools being smart IS cool, in others it isn’t, and the gap appears in test scores, GPAs, and graduation rates. And a recent research study using standardized test scores showed that scores were higher for Asian, black, and Hispanic students whose friends were of different ethnicities. Do these kids experience peer pressure in the right direction — or do the “uncool” smart kids tend to band together, ignoring race in the process?
Is this the result of too much pressure to succeed, a lack of respect for standardized tests, or just plain cluelessness? Although the number of incidents is described as “tiny,” there are educators out there willing to help students cheat on tests. The Daytona-Beach News Journal interviews one teacher who marked items in order to “encourage” students to “try” them again. Some teachers have gone on record insisting that they’ve been treated too harshly, while Commissioner Deborah Shepard doesn’t appear willing to give an inch.
If you think you’ve had a tough week, just imagine being a teacher in a district where 91% of your elementary students are learning English as their second language. The Monterey County Herald is tracking teacher Dee Heckman as she prepares to get Greenfield Elementary students ready to take the state standardized tests — in English.
Math teacher John Rushman helps his students breeze past the mandatory end-of-course algebra exams - and the math section of the SAT. His “secret?” The “traditional” approach — lots of drills, and lots of hands-on work. I suspect that’s no secret to most of us.
Oh, what’s a testing roundup without at least a little silliness? Bill Holbrook is no fan of standardized tests, but he is a terribly funny and talented cartoonist. His character Kevin is an avid gardener (hey, he’s a rabbit) who joined the local school board to fight against overtesting of students…but he’s apparently been seduced by the dark side!
Glad to be back, ya’ll!
Very interesting, I’ve never heard of a psychometrician before. Thanks for sharing!
Kimberly, It’s great to have a psychometrician in the mix! Welcome back.
Regarding the study that you mention, which finds that scores were higher for Asian, black, and Hispanic students whose friends were of different ethnicities - this looks like junk science to me. Selection bias is a tremendous problem in studying friendship choice. The researchers ignore this problem and instead simply divide students into two groups - those whose best friends were of the same race and those of a different race. Isn’t it likely that students with different race best friends are different in some way that also affects their achievement trajectory - i.e. they’re in higher track courses, which tend to be more integrated?
Yay, Kimberly!
It’s great to see you back!
We’ve missed you, too.
Very cool. Welcome back!
The two people who inspired me to start edublogging–in one place!
Glad to be reading your stuff again.
Why, it’s fun to be back! I figured some of you who read my blog might be hanging out over here. Feel free to mail in tips or stories during the week, and I’ll try to get a post up every Saturday.