Here we are, somewhat dubious, but still enthused that Maryland reported record gains in proficiency scores this year, when we learn that Maryland neglected to mention they made their test easier. By making the test time 1 hour shorter (which, they claim only prevented the students from getting fatigued but did not decrease the difficulty--isn't part of what makes tests difficult the time limit?), some questions were necessarily cut. These were not just any questions, however, these were the psychometrically approved questions.
Maryland had taken an off-the-shelf test, created by psychometric experts at Harcourt or similar, in 2002 and combined it with in-house questions. They argued that the off-the-shelf test lent validity to the assessment because it had been tested on millions of students across the nation, while the in-house questions were more relevant and aligned with the curriculum. In a cryptic Baltimore Sun article, we learn that Maryland elected to drop the vetted off-the-shelf questions for the following four reasons:
Although students had to answer about 40 questions on the standardized portion of the test, Maryland officials did not count most of them. Instead, they elected to count the questions that focused on material they cared about and those that reflected the state curriculum.But Maryland students were not informed that some questions did not count and might have gotten bogged down on questions that covered unfamiliar material. In addition, teachers who looked at the tests when they were given each year saw material they had not focused on in class and might have been confused about what to teach the next year, according to Leslie Wilson, who heads the state's assessment office.
Dropping the standardized portion also meant that students did not have to be given two sets of directions for the two parts of the examination.
Let me see if I understand this correctly. Not only are the properly vetted questions on material that is not covered by the state curriculum, but they're not counted either. Instead, the questions that have not been vetted are counted because Maryland officials (who are, of course, experts in the art of test question design) just decided one day that that was the "material they cared about"? Teachers, of course, would be confused by the fact that the curriculum they had been given wasn't aligned with the test so instead of, oh I don't know, fixing the curriculum, we'll just eliminate those pesky questions. And while we're at it, let's blame a minor procedural question because obviously students can't listen to directions, even though that is, ostensibly, what they do all day, every day in school. Come now, Maryland. You can't possibly think that you'd be able to defend your "historic" rise in test results when you made the test easier, can you?
But don't lose all hope, because Fordham was there to shed light on this abominable double dealing in the form of Amber "The Axe" Winkler and the Baltimore Sun took notice:
Maryland's test also has been questioned for other reasons. When compared with state tests around the nation, Maryland's ranked 26th in difficulty, according to a report by the Fordham Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Washington."If already the proficiency bars are lower than half the nation, what can we really make of this?" asked Amber Winkler, Fordham's research director."
Bam! Answer that one for us, Maryland.
