"The trouble with most folks isn't so much their ignorance,

as knowing so many things that ain't so."

Josh Billings, 1815-1885, American humorist

In my previous column .Measuring Temperature with a Tablespoon,. I referenced James Popham, one of

essence like .measuring temperature with a tablespoon.. In addition, Popham probably would agree

with the above quotation by American humorist Josh Billings when Popham observes, .Is all of this some

kind of conspiracy? No, I don.t think educational policymakers established high-states testing programs

to harm children---or to .get. teachers.. Rather, policymakers. actions reflect their ignorance of the

reality of educational testing. Even worse, they don.t know that they don.t know..

Wisconsin is like most other states. We have literally HUNDREDS of academic content standards. We

need to develop state tests for a few high-priority, .truly praiseworthy. standards that can be successfully

taught and accurately assessed in a timely manner. This is not an attempt to water down what we are

teaching our students! It is a call for identifying with clarity what academic standards Popham describes

to be as .SIGNIFICANT, clear, testable, and teachable as possible..

We have a multitude of skills that we are attempting to test, so it might appear that we have a rigorous set

of state standards. Popham captures the essence of this problem when he observes, .It.s impossible to test

properly all the good things we want kids to learn. From both an assessment and an instructional

perspective, too many curricular targets turn out to be no targets at all.. As a result, we essentially have

no instructional focus without prioritizing our myriad of state academic content standards.

Mystery and guessing are not allowed here! Our high-priority state content standards must be absolutely

clear and completely described. The component knowledge and skills that students must demonstrate and

that teachers need to teach should be evident to all.

Popham observes that, .The test developer then must decide whether a typical teacher, using any sort of

reasonable teaching approach, could provide students with the instruction they.ll need to master this set of

enabling knowledge and subskills. (that make up the components of the prioritized state standards).

Teachers are not lock-stepped into one particular way to teach this body of knowledge and skills. Popham

concludes, .Experience indicates that for most curricular outcomes, there are many roads to instructional

Mecca..

In standard-by-standard reporting, student scores are matched with specific standards. Standardized tests

do not provide this critical information. Instead, standardized test scores are indicators of broad areas of

knowledge that provide no specific focus for instruction. There would be no need to guess which student

performance scores match which specific standards in state assessment that has standard-by-standard

reporting. Students, teachers, parents and the community would know the high quality, rigorous

standards and the corresponding student performance scores on those standards.

The good news is that the Wisconsin Student Assessment System (WSAS) is beginning to develop an

appropriate accountability system, moving in the direction of Prioritized State Academic Content

first time this year, fourth and eighth grade students took a .customized. writing assessment as part of the

assessment as well beginning next school year. Students had to plan, write and edit a composition on a

specific topic (prompt) within a specified time frame. The writing prompts included the following

purposes: expressive writing (narrative or descriptive), informative or expository writing, and persuasive

writing. Each student.s paper will be scored based on purpose and focus, organization and coherence,

development of content, sentence fluency and word choice, and conventions (spelling, grammar, usage,

capitalization and punctuation).

This new state customized writing assessment costs more to develop than the assessments that accompany

most national standardized tests, yet we now have a test aligned with the specific knowledge and skills in

Wisconsin.s English language arts standards. This writing standard is significant, clear, testable and

teachable. In addition, the writing prompts have been developed, reviewed and field-tested in Wisconsin.

Popham nicely summarizes the goal: .It is possible to put together a state-wide high-stakes testing

teachers promote students. mastery of truly worthwhile skills and knowledge. The trick, of course, is to

employ educational tests that can fulfill an accountability function while also supplying teachers with

suitable instructional targets..

Standardized tests cannot fulfill this accountability function. Rather, they focus on comparisons (.score

spread.) among test-takers, and they are re-normed to maintain score spread---not to facilitate or

determine the effectiveness of instruction. As a result, standardized tests should not be used as a

measurement device for accountability for our schools.

The governor, state legislature and the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction need to work together

can do it!