The Ohio House Education committee recently added an amendment to Senate Bill 19 that threatens to upend state testing. If passed into law, it would require the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce to seek a waiver from the U.S. Secretary of Education allowing for a “nationally normed referenced” (NRT) test instead of the current state assessment. If approved, Ohio would change course on assessments.
Shifting to an NRT for the state assessment appears on its face to violate the federal education law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), as well as the Trump Administration’s commitment to transparency and comparability. But even if the secretary were to grant such a waiver, the NRT proposal is still a bad idea for Ohio. Here’s why.
1. It would undermine a fair, standards-based assessment and accountability system.
Standards and assessments go hand in hand. Content standards outline the knowledge and skills that students are expected to acquire at the end of each grade, while an end-of-year assessment gauges the extent to which students actually meet those standards. For instance, Ohio expects fourth grade students to “use decimal notation for fractions with denominators 10 or 100. For example, rewrite 0.62 as 62/100.” Thus, the fourth-grade math assessment might ask a student to write 7/10 as a decimal to demonstrate understanding of the content standard.
An integrated standards-and-assessment system is the fairest way of holding schools accountable for student learning. Think of it this way, using the example above: Without a standards-based assessment, a fourth grader might be asked to write 3/8 as a decimal. But that would be an unfair question because rewriting fractions with denominators outside of 10 and 100 are not expected under Ohio’s fourth-grade standards.
Recognizing the important link between standards and assessments, ESSA requires states to administer standards-aligned tests in accountability systems. The key passage reads:
The assessments under subparagraph (A) shall...be aligned with the challenging State academic standards, and provide coherent and timely information about student attainment of such standards and whether the student is performing at the student’s grade level.
Nationally-normed referenced tests do not meet this requirement—hence the need for a waiver—as questions are not tied to any particular state’s learning standards. Though NRTs can play a role in education—they are typically used to track student progress throughout a school year—they are not intended for use in state accountability systems. If used this way, NRTs undercut state standards, as schools are no longer held accountable for helping students achieve them.
2. It would throw state testing into turmoil—yet again.
Switching state tests is not like flipping a switch. Each assessment has its own IT requirements, administration procedures, test-score reporting formats, and more. Consider that Ohio’s test administration manual runs a dense 144 pages, covering important details such as test security, teacher and student logins, practice tests, and test-timing protocols. More than a decade ago, the annoyances and frustrations associated with changing state tests—from the OAA/OGT to PARCC—boiled over to the point that state lawmakers booted the new vendor out of Ohio. Fortunately, testing has settled down since then, with ten years of mostly smooth sailing under the state’s current assessment system. It seems unwise to risk throwing state testing into convulsion yet again, especially to move to a test that is less fair. Why put schools through another disruption?
3. It would open the door to a national testing company to impose its priorities onto Ohio schools.
As their name implies, NRTs are produced by testing companies that provide products and services across the entire country. As noted earlier, many American schools appropriately use these tests for diagnostic purposes. But the state test is different: It should reflect what Ohioans believe students should know and be able to do, not what a national testing company thinks is important (see the recent criticisms of the iReady test).
To ensure that the state test reflects local values and priorities, Ohio implements an assessment program that incorporates the expertise of the state’s educators. The learning standards, upon which the assessments are built, were developed and are periodically revised based on feedback from teachers and the wider public. The tests themselves are vetted by educators across the state. By contrast, there’s no guarantee that Ohioans would have any meaningful input if an NRT were used for the statewide assessment. If Ohio wants to maintain control over its state testing program—and it should--it must reject the idea of outsourcing assessment to a national vendor.
4. It would scramble achievement trends and limit the ability to track progress.
An oft-overlooked benefit of a stable assessment program is the ability to track long-term educational progress. When Ohio made the (messy) transition to its current state tests, we lost a connection to historical achievement data. The tests were so radically different that meaningful analyses—like comparing 2005 OAA to 2015 PARCC results—weren’t possible. Breaking the trend line limits state and local leaders’ ability to understand whether initiatives are moving the achievement needle. Is the science of reading improving reading proficiency statewide? Is a district’s new math or reading curriculum boosting achievement? Without consistent test data, it will only be harder to tell.
A better path forward on state assessment
It’s been suggested that the move to an NRT would reduce testing in Ohio schools. Concerns about assessment burdens are legitimate, and there are indeed ways that Ohio could make state tests less burdensome as well as more useful to parents and educators. But Ohio need not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
First, regarding time burdens, it’s important to remember that Ohio has a cap on annual testing time. Under state law, students may not spend more than 2 percent of the school year—roughly 20 hours—on state assessments and local diagnostic tests combined. In addition, students may not spend more than 1 percent of the school year on test preparation. These are smart guardrails that should curtail significant over-testing. If concerns are percolating about testing time, state lawmakers could start by ensuring that these provisions are being enforced.
Second, as for improvement options, the SB19 amendment also includes promising language that directs DEW to develop a plan for a “next-generation, computer-adaptive” state assessment. This plan would outline how the testing system aligns to state academic standards, minimizes testing time, ensures a rapid turnaround in results, allows testing windows later in the school year, and reports students’ grade-level status and percentile rankings. These are all worthy of investigation—we have recommended some of these features before—as they have the potential to make state testing more efficient and its results useful to teachers and parents. The scope of these upgrades would be much narrower than making a wholesale switch to an NRT—more like going from an iPhone 16 to iPhone 17. Lastly, by directing DEW to create a plan, rather than rushing headlong into changes, it could also help the state avoid another testing mess.
Ohio should maintain a stable, standards-aligned state assessment system, one that reflects Ohio’s educational priorities and includes input and feedback from Ohio educators. Carefully exploring how the state can build a better system makes sense. But let’s think twice before abruptly pulling an NRT off the shelf.
