On the theme of What Gets Measured Gets Improved, here is some very exciting news from the great state of Utah: State lawmakers are considering replacing grade-specific high-stakes tests with adaptive tests that allow students to demonstrate what they actually know and have learned, even if they are performing well-below or well-above grade level. This is encouraging news for all students and teachers, most especially those involved in education of exceptional students in special education and gifted and talented programs.
Two major problems of traditional grade-level tests limit their usefulness as measures of individual student progress. First, tests vary, often greatly, in content and rigor from one grade to the next, making them meaningless for tracking learning from year to year. Second, the tests fail to measure the progress of exceptional students. In New York, if a student is reading on a kindergarten level in third grade and improves to a first-grade reading level by fourth grade, that student's year of progress is obscured and diminished by a Level 1 score ("Not Meeting the Standard") on the state test. Meanwhile, a third grader capable of seventh-grade math could score a Level 4 ("Meeting the Standard with Distinction") for three years in a row without making any individual progress at all.
Computer adaptive tests solve these problems by adapting to students' abilities regardless of grade level. Basing questions on student performance during the test, the software allows more-advanced students access to more-advanced questions and less-advanced students access to questions at their current level of academic function. This targeted testing provides students and educators with meaningful data about how much students actually know and can do. Paired with software to analyze test results and provide students and educators with individualized "next steps," computer adaptive testing could give students and teachers an incredibly useful tool for growth and development: the feedback loop.
How big of a deal is this? The Deseret News quotes State Board of Education member Dave Thomas's statement to the Education Interim Committee: "This is the biggest change we've seen in public education in the last decade.... It really puts Utah at the forefront.... And I mean right at the forefront." I agree. For now, Utah is the only state with an adaptive test pilot program because it's the only state with a NCLB waiver. State legislators will consider adopting the program statewide during the 2012 legislative session.
Keep an eye on this one; if computer adaptive testing is allowed to develop and improve in Utah, the innovation could spread to New York State to support the development (and boost the morale!) of under-recognized students and teachers right here at home.
Links
Thomas Goetz's excellent Wired Magazine article
Molly Farmer's Deseret News report
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