AIMS test appears doomed; could new reforms be on the horizon?
July 15th, 2008, 5:54 pm · 6 Comments · posted by Le Templar
REP. RICH CRANDALL
Education testing in Arizona could be headed for yet another transformational reform – this time with a focus on standardized tests for reading and writing in early grades instead of as a requirement for graduation.
As The Associated Press reported this afternoon, Rep. Rich Crandall, R-Mesa, is leading a revolt at the state Capitol to dump the high-stakes AIMS test that has applied to prospective high school graduates since 2006. AIMS has been heavily criticized because it has been rewritten several times, the passing grades have been lowered and some students receive extra credit from their regular school work. All of this was done with the intent of boosting graduation rates, when the AIMS test was supposed to tell us who had really earned a high school diploma and who had not.
AIMS also has come under attack because some test questions are designed by the state Department of Education as the means to compare Arizona students with students in other states. The AIMS results generally show Arizona students do well, but that doesn’t match other measures such as the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Crandall’s suggestion that Arizona focus on testing in lower grade levels seems to be heavily influenced by a new set of education reforms set out by the Goldwater Institute’s Matthew Ladner and Arywynn Mattix, associate director of BASIS schools. Goldwater is a Phoenix-based libertarian think tank while BASIS is a hugely successful charter school operation.
Coincidentally, Tribune education reporter Michelle Reese and I sat down today with Ladner to discuss the proposals summarized in a July 2 report, Fortune Favors the Bold.
Ladner said the NEAP test clearly shows Arizona has made almost no progress in raising the education levels, particularly in reading, for Arizona students. In 2007, only 56 percent of fourth graders could read at that grade level, he said.
Different experts and research groups have tried to justify Arizona’s overall lack of progress, Ladner said, as they point to Arizona’s large Hispanic population and large number of poor families. Both demographic groups have traditional lagged behind everyone else in education.
Ladner said it’s fair to say Arizona’s education system has done remarkably well given the challenges it must deal with. But the reality is, without dramatic changes, tens of thousands of students will continue to go uneducated each year, they will drop out of school before high school graduation, and they will become a net drain on society because they can’t find good-paying jobs.
“You’ve spent a pile of money and half of these kids can’t read,” Ladner said. “There’s no way that can ever be acceptable.”
Reforms should focus on standarized testing in lower grade levels instead of high school (Ladner suggests the third grade) because that’s the easiest and most cost-efficient time to help students address reading and other learning deficiencies. The older they get, the harder it becomes.
Starlee Rhodes, Goldwater’s vice president of communications, also pointed out it’s easier for parents to accept a child being held back in the third grade than it will ever be to deny diplomas to high school students.
A legislative commission has been charged with developing an approach to replace AIMS by next year. Hopefully, the group will give serious consideration to Goldwater’s proposed reforms.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:28 am
Thank you. I read the earlier article that mentioned using the SAT (or ACT) as the high school test. As a teacher, I like that idea a lot. It does more to promote the idea that high school is not the end, and that it is a test that is not specific to our state. A state specific test does very little, and although I don’t like the idea of comparing students to each other to rank schools, this is a step closer the right direction. I would much rather see schools judged based on the progress of the individual students. I have seen a few charter schools use tests given at the begining, middle and end of the year to see how much growth students have made. Regular students are expected to make 1 year’s growth, gifted at least 1.5, and special education students are expected to make progress according to their IEP. I am also glad to see that I am not the only one who has suggested that we use the test at the elementary level to make sure that all students can read before they go into the upper grades. I don’t think many people realize how huge the difference is between 3rd grade and 4th grade. Up until the end of third grade, students are learning how to read (not just sound out words, but comprehend and make meaning out of the words) and starting in 4th grade they are reading and writing to learn. I hope that Arizona will wake up and take these research based suggestions to heart…and mind.
July 16th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
Having been educated on the eastern coast of our great nation, it was the rule that every one was tested in each grade to determine if the student was to progress on to the next grade. It was a surprise to me to find that Arizona does not have this unit of measurment in place. Arizona believes it’s students should progress on whatever the student believes it has learned. Arizona does not find out that the student has in fact learned absolutely nothing at graduation time and then it wants to withhold the students progress. It is the schools responsibility to ensure that a third grader has learned ALL of the third grade concepts. Call me old fashioned but what happened to “learning to read in kindergarten?”
August 1st, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Whatever happened to having specific requiements to pass each grade and progress? If a student cannot complete the requirements for a grade, they stay there until they can. I realizr this may be damaging to their delicate psyche but it will insure that when they do finish school, they will have received an education. I have noticed, in several “Vents, Letters to the Editor, and many articles in the Trib, that many folks did not learn proper punctuation or grammar in school. Apparantly they they didn’t learn the differance between many sond-alike words either. Perhaps some of our adults should go to a refresher school for spellin, grammar, and punctuation usage.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Notice the mistakes in my 1st response. It would appear that I didn’t learn how to proof-read.
August 1st, 2008 at 5:23 pm
OK, let’s bring this discussion down to basics. Kids should learn to read by the end of third grade. Give them a Reading test at the end of third grade. If they don’t pass, retain them in third grade until they do.
Next, kids should learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide by the end of sixth grade. Give them a Math test at the end of sixth grade. If they don’t pass it, retain them in sixth grade until they do.
Then, kids should learn how to write a good sentence by the time they finish eighth grade. Give them a Writing test at the end of eighth grade. If they don’t pass it, retain them in eighth grade until they do.
I’m sick to death of hearing about all this testing rhetoric. What possible good is it doing to test these kids constantly year in and year out? The kids are in school to learn how to learn. That’s right, LEARN HOW TO LEARN. In other words, none of us, parents, teachers, clergy or public servants have the time or ability to teach kids all that they’ll need to know to survive in the modern world. What we can teach them is how to FIND OUT what they need to know, when they need to know it. The only thing the kids these days are learning in school is how to take the darn test. That’s not education, that’s conditioning.
It’s time the Dept. of Education and the Legislature woke up to the fact that these Standarized Tests are hurting kids more than helping. It’s time we got back to teaching our kids how to learn, rather than training them how to pass some erroneous test dreamed up by a committee of politicians and text book publishers to further their own agenda.
August 20th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Jake you couldn’t have said it any better! Determining whether a student has made yearly progress on a 4 day yearly test is absurd. Imagine your job evaluation being determined by your production on 4 days out of the year. Not too many people would remain employed. The biggest critics seem to be the ones furthest from the trenches. A true teacher holds themselves accountable for the success of their students daily. They do not need a faceless department telling them they have failed, because little Jimmy had a rough 4 days. The Department of Education needs a wake up call and a complete overhaul. I’d prefer my kid learning to read and write better in 4th grade rather than understanding how a closed circuit works. Things would make much more sense if the people making these educational reforms actually understood what a day in the trenches looked like.