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American Morning

Standardized Test Debate Heats Up

Aired August 28, 2001 - 10:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The debate is heating up over standardized tests in general. Some say the only way to make sure students are learning is with these tests. Others say all they learn is how to pass a test.

CNN's Kathy Slobogin has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bruce Snyder is exactly what the public schools say they need.

BRUCE SNYDER, TEACHER: I felt like it was a mission. And once I got into public education I never thought I would leave it.

SLOBOGIN: An acclaimed high school math teacher for nine years in Loudoun County, Virginia, Snyder was nominated for teacher of the year.

But this fall he won't be teaching in the public schools.

(on camera): Why are you leaving?

SNYDER: I don't believe in its mission anymore. It seems to me that the mission of public education now or what it's moving towards is to prepare students to do well on a multiple choice test, and I think there's so much more to education.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Snyder has moved to a private school to escape the test-dominated culture of the public schools. He says the pressure to raise test scores put a straitjacket on teachers and narrowed what students learned.

SNYDER: I don't think they capture at all what these kids are learning. The test scores might go up, but I think their learning is actually going down.

SLOBOGIN (on camera): Annual standardized testing has been embraced by Washington as the key to identifying failing schools. But as appealing as it is to politicians and some educators, many of those in the trenches of school reform say the emphasis on testing ignores the reality in the classroom and may even do harm.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, on a standard persuasive essay all you really need to provide is five paragraphs.

SLOBOGIN: The federal testing mandate has its roots in Texas. Schools here are held accountable for how well their student do every year.

Texas officials credit and annual testing with driving the state's education reform.

JIM NELSON, TEXAS EDUCATION COMMISSIONER: I think it's probably the most important thing we've done in Texas in the last decade. There's assessing of each and every grade level each and every year.

SLOBOGIN: Testing is hardly new. In fact, 48 states already have some form of statewide testing. But President Bush's "Leave No Child Behind" bill mandates tests every year in grades three through eight. Some states fear that may actually undermine what they've already accomplished.

ELIZABETH BURMASTER, WISCONSIN PUBLIC INSTRUCTOR: I'd have to say that here in Wisconsin we feel it's of less of "leave no child behind" and more of "leave no child untested."

What the sun sees.

SLOBOGIN: Elizabeth Burmaster, Wisconsin's superintendent, says her state has invested in smaller classes and teacher training. While Wisconsin does have annual testing, it's not in every grade.

BURMASTER: If we have to invest now the resources and the time in the energy into changing an assessment system that's been working well for us, it's going to really take away from what we know is working well in Wisconsin because of a federal mandate.

SLOBOGIN: Burmaster says Wisconsin's drive for smaller classes has shown real results, that what really matters is the quality of interaction between child and teacher, not a test given once a year.

BURMASTER: We have to ensure that we aren't just raising a generation of good test-takers, but that we truly are educating our children to take the knowledge they learn and apply it in the real world.

SLOBOGIN: The federal teaching push has raised red flags on another front, the insistence that schools show yearly progress or face sanctions.

UCLA Professor Tom Kane co-authored a study which looked at how schools would fair under the proposed federal mandate.

THOMAS KANE, UCLA: We studied school in North Carolina and Texas, two states that have been the envy of the educational world for the last five years. And we found that 98 percent or more of the schools in Texas and North Carolina would have failed the federal definition at some point over five years.

SLOBOGIN: While demanding progress may be an admiral goal, Kane says year-to-year fluctuations in test scores make the federal rules unrealistic. Under the stricter House version of the bill, he found that three quarters of the schools in both states would have been shutdown and restructured.

KANE: One can't have a system where virtually all the schools are failing because our worst schools, the schools in most-needed reform, are likely to be lost in a crowd, and some of our best schools might be required to jump through hoops that it's pointless for them to jump through.

SLOBOGIN: As the final details of the new education bill are hashed out some of these concerns from the classroom may be heard.

But for teachers like Bruce Snyder, it's too late.

SNYDER: I feel sad about leaving. In a way I feel like I'm turning my back on something that's very important to me. At the same time I feel like the mission public education is taking, it's hurting our students, and I didn't want to be a part of that.

Kathy Slobogin, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: After the break we're going to set up a debate here on the issue of standardized testing, the public perception, policies, parents and student accountability. We're going to talk about all of that just ahead.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAGAN: We're going to continue now this morning's look at standardized testing. We have two guests with different perspectives on this issue.

Matt Gandal is vice president of Achieve, a company that helps states compare standardized test results. He's in Washington DC.

From Boston we have Monty Neal. He is executive director of FairTest. He has been working on public school testing since 1987.

Gentlemen, good morning. Good to have you with us.

MATT GANDAL, ACHIEVE: Good morning.

MONTY NEILL, FAIRTEST: Good morning.

KAGAN: Matt, I'm going to go ahead and start with you.

Basically, when we're talking standardized testing what are you talking about? How many subjects and how extensive?

GANDAL: I think what we're talking about is a nationwide push to try to improve teaching and learning and expand opportunities for all students in our public schools to learn what they need to succeed when they graduate. What's going on with testing is nearly every state, really, has tried to institute a set of tests in key academic subjects, math, science, reading, writing, to determine at key points in students careers how well they're doing and, most importantly, help those students who need the help before it's too late.

What I think we need to keep our eyes on here is the staggering figures that we've seen for graduates of our public schools and how ill-prepared they are for college or their next steps life. This is all about helping kids, and the only way we can do that is to have some measures in place that determine how well they're doing and where they need that extra want and help.

KAGAN: All right, on that note let's bring Monty in.

Monty, hard to argue with this. You want your kid to go to a good school and you want your kids to be doing well, and if you don't have standards how are you going to know?

NEILL: Standards are reasonable. All schools should have standards, and good certainly do. But that has very little to do with standardized testing, which in fact narrows and dumbs down the curriculum. It's rather depriving children of the possibility of a good education. There's certainly many schools right now which are not doing well, largely because they don't have the resources to do well.

So first we have to give them the resources. Second, yes, we do need to know how well children are doing, but the best way to know that, and most polls will show parents understand this, is to look at the actual work that students are doing.

What we are doing in this country instead is driving curriculum and instruction using a very narrow and limited set of tools, and some of the consequences are things like driving good teachers out of schools as we just saw in the previous segment.

KAGAN: We did see that in the piece.

Matt, how do you answer that criticism, that, yes, there's teaching going on out there, but you know what, you're teaching kids how to take multiple choice test, you're not teaching them how to think and you're not teaching them the kind of thing they really need to know that succeeds in the world?

GANDAL: It's exception, not the rule. There are schools where they're making unwise decisions and narrowing the curriculum because of tests, but in the vast majority of schools that's simply not happening.

First of all, the tests that are being given are not simply fill in the bubble tests anymore, the tests that we took in school, they're much more rich and sophisticated.

And secondly, all the polls that we've seen of teachers and parents show that the vast majority support this movement because it's good for kids.

So what we need to do is help weed out and counsel out the unwise decisions that are being made in school, but pay much more attention to the evidence and the results that are showing that students are learning more because we have higher standards.

KAGAN: I don't think that...

NEILL: But the evidence isn't really there.

If you look at Texas using an independent measure, reading did not improve in Texas in the 1990s, it was flat for Latinos and African-Americans. It went up on the state test, that's because of very narrow teaching to the state test. This is -- in fact, most of the state tests are still predominantly multiple choice. Even when they have open-ended questions they're usually not very good and not very deep. It does in fact narrow the curriculum. And the myth is that we're going to have these wonderful tests that are worth teaching to and are going to really help us diagnose student problems and then provide assistance to them. That's a worthy goal, except the tests are simply not up to the task and it's really not working across the country.

KAGAN: Matt, before you jump on that...

GANDAL: Look, I...

KAGAN: Wait, before you jump in on that, because our time is so short, I'm -- certainly I'm not going to get you two gentlemen to agree in our short amount of time. But what I would like to get your perspective, since you're both in it, is where this is going? Whether you like it or not, where are we headed with nationalized -- with testing?

GANDAL: Well, like it or not -- let me try to respond quickly. Like it or not, we're going to have more testing because of what's probably going to come out of Congress is a requirement to have tests in each grade between third grade and eighth grade, more attention on how to use those results to try to change teaching and learning and help students who need help. And frankly, from our perspective as an organization working with the states to improve these ideas and policies, we want to see better tests. There are really good tests out there, I agree with Monty, there are some not so good tests. So our view is let's make the tests better, let's not get rid of them, let's not lower the standards and sell the kids short.

(CROSSTALK)

KAGAN: Let me (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Monty get in here.

Monty, are we testing -- more testing even though you don't like the idea?

NEILL: In the short term the testing will increase. I think we'll find it simply doesn't work to improve school. The parent backlash that's beginning to develop in many states is going to increase, parents are getting quite angry about the overtesting and the misuse of testing.

It doesn't mean the end to all testing, that's not what most folks are talking about. We're talking about using tests in a very limited way and as one piece of information instead of trying to make them the centerpiece of driving, in the end, in the wrong direction.

KAGAN: And the discussion will go on.

I'm sorry, Matt, we're out of time. We have to let Monty have the last word there.

My thanks to Monty Neill and to Matt Gandal as well.

Gentlemen, thanks for having our discussion today.

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