Standardized Tests

The latest battery of standardized tests indicates that Lower Merion School District students scored equal to or higher than other suburban school districts that administer the tests to their students. The testing program, called the Comprehensive Testing Program II of the Educational Records Bureau (ERB), was given to students in grades 7, 8 and 10 for the first time last fall in an effort to compare Lower Merion students with students at similar public and independent schools throughout the country.

In an effort to find out how its students measure up, the Lower Merion school board is considering a new testing program used by many Main Line independent schools and two other public school districts. The tests, fondly referred to as ERBs by students, are created by the Educational Records Bureau, a nonprofit educational institution based in Wellesley, Mass., and administered in 1,100 independent and 100 suburban school districts nationwide. David Hall, director of ERB's New York office, told the school board Monday night that in a pilot test of the program at Lower Merion, the students performed remarkably well.

Education Secretary Ron Tomalis said yesterday that the state will investigate 49 school districts across the state, including Philadelphia, for alleged cheating on state standardized tests taken since 2009. An independent contractor responsible for auditing the Pennsylvania System of Standards Assessment will analyze test scores of 90 schools. The districts will have 30 days to respond to the Department of Education's request for cooperation, said department spokesman Timothy Eller.

It may be time for someone to say a word on behalf of standardized tests. Such tests - both those used for college admissions and new "high-stakes" state tests used for promotion (and sometimes high school graduation) - have come under fire. Murmurs of protest are already audible regarding Pennsylvania's plan to put results from the state assessment on students' diplomas and transcripts in 2003. Some parents have gone as far as to keep their children home on days when the state tests are given.

Students who took standardized tests in math and language arts in 1999 and again in 2002 improved over the three-year period, according to results released yesterday by the state Department of Education. Scores from the Grade Eight Proficiency Assessment taken in 1999 compared with the High School Proficiency Assessment taken by 11th graders in 2002 showed fewer students failing the exams. While general- and special-education students improved in math and language arts statewide, math scores of students for whom English is not a native language remained flat.

Moving to overhaul the way New Jersey tests its public school children, Gov. McGreevey yesterday said the state will implement new standardized tests as well as require districts to evaluate students based on performance. The change will effectively ease the state's reliance on traditional standardized tests - long a source of controversy in New Jersey - by requiring school districts to administer programs to evaluate students in various subjects based on their performance. The two testing measures will be given equal weight when it comes time to assess how children are faring in school, officials said.

Fewer local schools failed to meet federal academic-progress targets, but across New Jersey, performance on standardized tests dropped slightly, state education officials reported yesterday. In Burlington, Camden and Gloucester Counties, 116 schools fell short on standardized tests under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, according to data released by the state yesterday. That's an improvement over last year when 133 local schools failed to make, in the language of the legislation, "adequate yearly progress.

Shrink-wrapped bundles are under lock and key in schools across New Jersey, as 90,000 juniors, sharpened pencils in hand, prepare to take the High School Proficiency Assessment this week. At Charles Brimm Medical Arts High School in Camden, monitors will be watching after an accusation by the principal that he was pressured to rig test scores. A state investigation is under way. So how secure are the math and language arts tests that 11th graders will take Tuesday in Camden and elsewhere?

After a decade of controversy over academic standards for college athletes, a public-interest group yesterday sued the NCAA, contending that it discriminates against minorities by using standardized-test scores to determine eligibility for college sports. The suit by Trial Lawyers for Public Justice contends that Proposition 16 - cornerstone of the NCAA's campaign to abolish the "dumb jock" stereotype - with its emphasis on standardized college-admissions tests, keeps African American student athletes out of top schools.

Few subjects have stirred the concerns of New Jersey public-school teachers recently like the state's new standardized tests for fourth, eighth and 11th graders, and they remained a hot topic yesterday at the mammoth annual convention of the New Jersey Education Association. In a speech to teachers, Education Commissioner David Hespe answered a longstanding criticism that teachers do not get to see the test questions, announcing that the state would soon make some of the items public in practice tests.

By Christopher Paslay There's an old saying that weighing a cow doesn't make it fatter. When it comes to educational testing in Pennsylvania, however, Gov. Corbett may beg to differ. His proposed 2012-13 budget calls for a 43 percent increase in funding for educational assessments, to $52 million, even as it keeps school funding generally flat and cuts spending on state-related universities. The timing of this increase is interesting. Last year, a forensic audit of the 2009 state exams flagged 38 school districts and 10 charter schools for possible cheating; nearly half of them are still under investigation.

SECAUCUS, N.J. - The Christie administration has developed a new system for reviewing and rating school performance for the state's annual report cards. New Jersey's nearly 600 school districts will be classified into one of three categories: "focus schools" for the lowest-performing, "priority schools," and "reward" schools for the best. It's unclear whether the highest-achieving schools will receive any perks for their status. Acting Education Commissioner Chris Cerf said the new system, which he and the governor announced Wednesday, would help education officials concentrate on the bottom 5 percent of failing schools and allow for a "more sensible and nuanced way of talking about schools.

Should teacher pay and promotions be determined on the basis of how well students do on standardized tests?

WITH all that's embroiled the Philadelphia School District over the last three months - a surprise deficit topping half a billion dollars, staff layoffs by the thousands, evidence suggesting possible widespread cheating on standardized tests - it's no surprise that the contract controversy at Martin Luther King High has faded from the headlines. But with Mayor Nutter's investigation into the whole tangled affair said to be nearly complete, Philadelphians may soon learn much more about why a high-stakes process that started so smoothly collapsed so completely.

Education Secretary Ron Tomalis said yesterday that the state will investigate 49 school districts across the state, including Philadelphia, for alleged cheating on state standardized tests taken since 2009. An independent contractor responsible for auditing the Pennsylvania System of Standards Assessment will analyze test scores of 90 schools. The districts will have 30 days to respond to the Department of Education's request for cooperation, said department spokesman Timothy Eller.

Obama: Too many standardized tests WASHINGTON - President Obama said Monday that students should take fewer standardized tests and that school performance should be measured in other ways than just exam results. Too much testing makes education boring for children, he said. "Too often what we have been doing is using these tests to punish students or to, in some cases, punish schools," he told students and parents at a town hall hosted by the Univision Spanish-language TV network at Bell Multicultural High School.

By Daniel Denvir Philadelphia school officials are hungry for data. The district's new safety chief plans to use CompStat, a statistical crime-fighting tool employed by police here and elsewhere. It provides data that could be useful, say, in uncovering a pattern of racially motivated violence at a school. But in police precincts as well as classrooms, numbers can take on lives of their own. Much like "friends" on Facebook, statistics can become substitutes for experience. In the HBO series The Wire 's insightful dramatization of the CompStat approach, an anxious mayor demands results from a police chief, who in turn uses high-pressure meetings to rake commanding officers over the coals for failing to meet crime-reduction targets.

The Philadelphia school system achieved another major benchmark with the latest results showing significant gains on the state's standardized tests. It almost goes without saying that the district still has a long way to go to improve student achievement to an acceptable level, but the current scores are nonetheless worth saluting. For the 2009-10 school year, 158 of the city's 267 schools, or 59 percent, met the benchmark for "adequate yearly progress" under the federal No Child Left Behind law, according to district data.

New Jersey Education Commissioner Bret Schundler has presented a broad public education plan that would make student performance "the primary yardstick" for judging teachers and schools. The proposals, which Schundler aired Friday and which he will discuss with school officials Monday, will be included in the state's new application for federal Race to the Top funding, due June 1. New Jersey could be in line for as much as $400 million. Schundler called on the Legislature to pass before the deadline a simple bill that would declare student performance the basis for evaluating all things pertaining to education in the state.