What Every Parent Needs to Know about Standardized Tests: How to Understand the Tests and Help Your Kids Score High!

What Every Parent Needs to Knowabout Standardized Tests

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What Every ParentNeeds to Know about

Standardized TestsHow to Understand the Tests and

Help Your Kids Score High!

Joseph R. Harris, Ph.D.

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Dedication

To my son, Ross Adam Harris, who sometimes goes by theTsalagi (Cherokee) name Guwisgui. I am so proud of theperson you are. If I could have written down a wish list witheverything my child would be, I couldn’t be more pleased.Not only are you the most intelligent person I have evermet, but you have the kindest heart. I can’t wait to see whatyour future holds for you.


CONTENTS

Acknowledgmentsvii

Introduction1

1Help Your Child Succeed

21

2Scoping Out Test Questions

39

3Decoding Your Child’s Score

61

vii

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Copyright 2002 by Joseph R. Harris. Click Here for Terms of Use.

4After the Dust Settles: What You Can Do

73

5If You’re a Homeschooler

89

6If Your Child Has Special Needs

101

7From California to Iowa

119

8The TerraNova Series:The Comprehensive Test

of Basic Skills and the California Achievement Test135

9The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills

143

10Metropolitan Achievement Tests

149

11Stanford Achievement Test

155

viii Contents

12Aptitude Tests

163

Appendixes

ACode of Fair Testing Practices in Education

183

BPsychometric Statistics Primer

193

CState Education Department Web Sites

213

DWeb Sites and Resources for More Information

219

ERead More about It

227

Glossary231

Index237

Contents ix


Acknowledgments

I can’t imagine completing a work such as this without beingindebted to a large group of friends, family, and professionalswho have contributed their time, information, love, support,resources, and patience.Where to begin? I owe so many peo-ple so much.

I must thank Ellen Haley,vice president of CTB/McGraw-Hill, for her help not only on this book but on my previousMcGraw-Hill books as well. She never hesitated to give mepermission to reprint the TerraNova reports that helped meexplain what test scores mean. I also wish to thank myagent, Bert Holtje, for taking on this neophyte to non-academic publishing and being in my corner. Thanks also toBarbara Gilson of McGraw-Hill, who was also my executiveeditor on the Get Ready! for Standardized Tests series, andwhose vision guided this book. Thanks too to JenniferChong, editorial assistant at McGraw-Hill, who has been atremendous resource and has never hesitated to help withthis book, as she did with the Get Ready! for StandardizedTests series. And who can forget Jane Palmieri, editing man-

xi


ager, McGraw-Hill, who has kept my nose to the grindstonethrough the editorial process.

I can’t end this acknowledgment without thanking mywife,Elaine, for her patience and encouragement through yetanother writing project. She has made my writing projectspossible by her support and indulgence.Whenever I was dis-couraged, she urged me to continue. And my son, Ross AdamHarris: I don’t recall a time when I didn’t see myself throughhis eyes. He is the brightest light in my universe.

Last but not least, I owe more thanks than I can everexpress to my friend,my writing mentor,my e-mail buddy,mygreatest cheerleader and most demanding task mistress,Carol Turkington.She is everything a great teacher should be.

xii Acknowledgments

Introduction

Remember the standardized tests we took in school? Thetests were long and boring, and by the time we finished

with them, we were worn out.Those tests are still around.Every school year,many of our children take them,and everyyear local newspapers and television news programs devotetremendous amounts of coverage to their results.Today, thestakes for students are different from what they were in thepast, but they are just as serious as they were back then.

Technically, a standardized test is any measure used toevaluate skills or characteristics, with specific proceduresfor administering and scoring the tests and interpreting theresults.This book will discuss the type of standardized testsknown as group achievement and aptitude tests that schoolsadminister to students.

Testing HistoryStandardized testing has its roots in the industrialization ofAmerica at the turn of the nineteenth century, when rural

1


Americans left the farms in droves to seek work in city fac-tories.This new wave of workers created a need for literateemployees who could read instructions, write reports, andperform basic mathematical functions.

At the same time,government began to increase supportfor public education. Blue-collar workers began sendingtheir children to school so they could train for better jobs.

During this period, psychologists Alfred Binet andTheodore Simon in Paris developed the forerunner oftoday’s intelligence test to help identify children likely tohave trouble in school—but their test was given to eachchild individually and was therefore quite expensive.

As World War I funneled recruits from all educationalbackgrounds into the military, commanders needed quickways to determine which soldiers were capable of learningparticular skills. Searching for a way to evaluate recruits in afast and cost-effective manner, two group tests of abilitywere developed for the Army—these tests were the fore-runners of today’s group standardized tests used in schools.

After the war was over, psychologists and educatorsbegan to realize the benefits that standardized tests mightbring to the nation’s schools. In 1923, the StanfordAchievement Test became the first group achievement testused in the schools.This test, currently in its ninth revision,continues to be one of the most popular group achievementtests today.

Group standardized achievement testing caught on, andin the 1920s and 1930s became the darling of American pub-lic education. Psychologists placed great faith in the value ofsuch tests to diagnose a student’s learning abilities. In fact,by the 1930s, psychologists believed that the group stan-dardized achievement tests available at that time were supe-rior to individually administered tests because of their objec-

2 Introduction

tivity, ease of scoring, and standardized conditions. Theylooked forward to a time when schools would test firstgraders to help plan the type of instruction most suited tothem. They envisioned testing all children every year notonly to determine how successfully they were learning butalso to figure out which teaching strategies worked the best.

Educators eagerly embraced these tests because theythought the tests offered an objective and accurate way ofdetermining a student’s needs. Group standardized testsallowed educators to evaluate many children at a small costper child—certainly at a cost much lower than for individu-al testing.

Unfortunately,group standardized tests never lived up totheir early promise. Researchers discovered that the verycharacteristics that make standardized tests so efficient andcost-effective also limit their validity in evaluating the learn-ing of individual students.

By the 1960s and 1970s, after decades of ability groupingbased on standardized tests, it became clear that such prac-tices were not acceptable. Parents sued school districts forplacing their children in rigid educational “tracks” based ontest scores. Parents and civil rights groups won a series oflandmark court cases challenging ability grouping (or track-ing),and the courts told the schools that they could no longerplace children into different instructional groups on the basisof group standardized test results. Researchers also began toidentify racial and gender biases in group standardized tests.

The Accountability MovementJust as the courts began to restrict the use of standardizedtests for ability grouping, taxpayers began to demand oftheir schools more accountability. By the early 1980s, voters

Introduction 3

began to demand evidence that schools were spending theirtax money responsibly.

Parents became suspicious of the ways educatorsgauged how effectively they taught students. The publicbecame suspicious of any but the most objective measuresof student performance.To parents, group standardized testsseemed to be the ideal tool to gauge academic progress.

Politicians began to promise to boost the amount of test-ing and the consequences of test scores for students, teach-ers, and educational systems themselves.Today many statesuse standardized tests in “high-stakes testing”as the basis for:

• Promotion and retention• Graduation• Eligibility for remedial programs• Eligibility for gifted programs• Teacher evaluations, including firing teachers whose stu-

dents consistently perform poorly on standardized tests• Evaluations of administrators, firing administrators in

schools and school districts in which students consistent-ly perform below national standards

• School district funding

Along with the increasing importance of standardized testscores, there have been testing scandals.Teachers have beenfired or prosecuted for stealing copies of standardized testsand drilling their students on the correct answers as a wayof boosting test scores used to evaluate teaching skills. Someschool districts have been accused of unethical practicessuch as:

• Creating “flu lists” of students who consistently performpoorly on standardized tests and are told to stay homeduring test week

4 Introduction

• Intentionally classifying underperforming students asbeing eligible for special education classes to excludethem from taking standardized tests

• Teaching only items included on standardized tests andneglecting important subject matter that the tests don’tcover

Two Types of Standardized TestsThe two main types of group standardized tests that yourchild may take in public school are:norm-referenced tests andcriterion-referenced tests. Let’s take a look at each of these.

Norm-Referenced Tests

The main distinguishing feature of norm-referenced tests isthat students’ scores are judged by comparing them with thescores of a sample of students who took the test duringstandardization.

For example, let’s say that in Test A, the average score fornorm-group students was 200. If your child scored 227, thismeans she scored above the average level,but we don’t knowhow much above average she scored. If you look at the statis-tics of the scores from the norm group, this reveals that 57percent of norm-group students scored at or below a score of227. That provides you with a much better idea of exactlyhow your child’s score measures up. Chapter 3 provides amore extensive discussion of what norm-referenced scoresmean.The major commercial tests are norm-referenced.

Criterion-Referenced Tests

In criterion-referenced tests, students are compared againstsome criterion for success.For example,when your child waslearning to tie his shoes, you engaged in simple criterion-

Introduction 5

referenced testing: In this case,your criterion for success wasthat your child tied a square knot in bows, and the knot heldfor some period of time. It didn’t matter what score he gotcompared with those of others—just that he met the criteri-on. If your child couldn’t tie his shoes, there would be a hier-archy of skills that lead up to the final goal of tying the prop-er knot, such as knowing how to loop the shoelaces, how totighten the laces, how to tie a square knot. If your childdemonstrated that he could loop and tighten the laces butcouldn’t tie a square knot, the next order of business was toteach him to tie a square knot.

Schools give criterion-referenced tests to determinewhat specific skills students have mastered and what theyhave not. For example, Elaine takes a criterion-referencedtest in mathematics. She meets the criteria for mastery incounting to 20, adding single-digit numbers without carry-ing, and subtracting single digits not requiring borrowing.She doesn’t meet criteria for mastery of any higher mathe-matics skills that come next, such as adding and subtractingsingle-digit numbers with regrouping, adding and subtract-ing two- and three-digit numbers, and so on.

Her teacher would see that Elaine doesn’t need furtherwork to teach her addition and subtraction of single digitswithout carrying and borrowing and that she can proceedto the next skills on the list. In this example, it doesn’t mat-ter how Elaine compares with other students. Her teacher isonly concerned with the specific skills Elaine has mastered.

Most criterion-referenced tests used by states are non-commercial tests that the states have developed themselves.

6 Introduction

State-by-State Breakdownof Standardized Tests

Tables I-1 and I-2 provide information about standardized testson a state-by-state basis.Table I-1 lists which standardized testspublic schools use in each state use, and Table I-2 specifieswhich grades the schools test as well as whether studentsmust pass a test to receive their high school diplomas.

Note that more than half the states conduct some typeof group standardized testing, and many require students topass an “exit exam” to receive their high school diplomas.Even if you live in a state that doesn’t require standardizedtests, your child may still participate in some type of stan-dardized testing through local testing programs. Also notethat these data frequently change.

Introduction 7

NORM-REFERENCED CRITERION-REFERENCEDSTATE TEST TEST EXIT EXAM

Alabama Stanford Achievement Test Alabama High School Graduation Exam

Alaska California Achievement Test Alaska Benchmark Examinations

Arizona Stanford Achievement Test Arizona’s Instrument toMeasure Standards (AIMS)

Arkansas Stanford Achievement Test

California Stanford Achievement Test Standardized Testing and High School Exit Exam (HSEE)Reporting Supplement

Colorado (None) Colorado Student AssessmentProgram

Connecticut Connecticut Mastery Test

Delaware Stanford Achievement Test Delaware Student TestingProgram

District of Columbia Stanford Achievement Test

Table I-1 Norm-Referenced and Criterion-Referenced Tests Administered by State

8


Florida (Locally Selected) Florida Comprehensive High School Competency TestAssessment Test (FCAT) (HSCT)

Georgia Stanford Achievement Test Georgia Kindergarten Assessment Georgia High School GraduationProgram—Revised and Criterion- TestsReferenced Competency Tests(CRCT)

Hawaii Stanford Achievement Test Credit by Examination Hawaii State Test of EssentialCompetencies

Idaho Iowa Tests of Basic Skills/ Direct Writing/MathematicsTests of Achievement Assessment, Idaho Readingand Proficiency Indicator

Illinois Illinois Standards Achievement Prairie State AchievementTests Examination

Indiana Indiana Statewide Testingfor Educational Progress

Iowa (None)

Kansas (State-Developed Tests)

Kentucky Comprehensive Test of Kentucky Core Content TestsBasic Skills

9


Louisiana Iowa Tests of Basic Skills Louisiana Educational Graduate Exit ExamAssessment Program

Maine Maine Educational Assessment High School Assessment Test

Maryland Maryland School PerformanceAssessment Program, MarylandFunctional Testing Program

Massachusetts Massachusetts ComprehensiveAssessment System

Michigan Michigan Educational High School TestAssessment Program

Minnesota Basic Standards Test Profile of Learning

Mississippi Comprehensive Test Subject Area Testing Program Functional Literacy Examinationof Basic Skills

Missouri Missouri Mastery andAchievement Test

Montana Iowa Tests of Basic Skills

10


Nebraska (None)

Nevada TerraNova Nevada High School ProficiencyExamination

New Hampshire NH Educational Improvementand Assessment Program

New Jersey Elementary School Proficiency High School Proficiency TestTest/Early Warning Test

New Mexico TerraNova New Mexico High SchoolCompetency Exam

New York Pupil Evaluation Program/ Regents Competency TestsPreliminary Competency Tests

North Carolina Iowa Tests of Basic Skills NC End of Grade Test

North Dakota TerraNova ND Reading, Writing, Speaking,Listening, Math Test

Ohio Ohio Proficiency Tests Ohio Proficiency Tests

Oklahoma Iowa Tests of Basic Skills Oklahoma Criterion-Referenced Tests

11


Oregon Oregon Statewide Assessment

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania System of SchoolAssessment

Rhode Island Metropolitan Achievement New Standards English LanguageTest Arts Reference Exam, New

Standards Mathematics ReferenceExam, Rhode Island WritingAssessment, and Rhode IslandHealth Education Assessment

South Carolina TerraNova Palmetto Achievement High School Exit ExamChallenge Tests

South Dakota Stanford Achievement Test

Tennessee Tennessee Comprehensive Tennessee ComprehensiveAssessment Program Assessment Program

Texas Texas Assessment of Texas Assessment of AcademicAcademic Skills, End-of-Course SkillsExaminations

Utah Stanford Achievement Test Core Curriculum Testing

12


Vermont New StandardsReference Exams

Virginia Stanford Achievement Test Virginia Standards Virginia Standardsof Learning of Learning

Washington Iowa Tests of Basic Skills Washington Assessment Washington Assessment ofof Student Learning Student Learning

West Virginia Stanford Achievement Test

Wisconsin TerraNova Wisconsin Knowledge andConcepts Examinations

Wyoming TerraNova Wyoming Comprehensive Wyoming ComprehensiveAssessment System Assessment System

13

STATE KG 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 COMMENT

Alabama X X X X X X X X X X

Alaska X X X X X

Arizona X X X X X X X X X X X

Arkansas X X X X X X X

California X X X X X X X X X X

Colorado X X X X X

Connecticut X X X

Delaware X X X X X X

District of Columbia X X X X X X X X X X X

Table I-2 Standardized Test Schedules by State

14

STATE KG 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 COMMENT

Florida X X X X X There is no state-mandatednorm-referenced testing. TheFCAT is administered toGrades 4, 8, and 10 to assessreading and Grades 5, 8, and10 to assess math.

Georgia X X X X X X X

Hawaii X X X X The Credit by Examination isvoluntary and is given inGrade 8 in Algebra andForeign Languages.

Idaho X X X X X X X X X

Illinois X X X X X X X Exit Exam failure will not dis-qualify students from gradua-tion if all other requirementsare met.

Indiana X X X X

Iowa * * * * * * * * * * * * *Iowa does not currently havea statewide testing program.Locally chosen assessmentsare administered to gradesdetermined locally.

15

STATE KG 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 COMMENT

Kansas X X X X X X X

Kentucky X X X X X X X X X

Louisiana X X X X X X X X X X

Maine X X X

Maryland X X X X X X X

Massachusetts X X X X X X X

Michigan X X X X

Minnesota X X X X X X X

Mississippi X X X X X X

Missouri X X X X X X X X X

16

STATE KG 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 COMMENT

Montana X X X The State Board of Educationhas decided to use a singlenorm-referenced teststatewide beginning in the2000−2001 school year.

Nebraska ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **Decisions regarding testingare left to the individualschool districts.

Nevada X X Districts choose whether andhow to test with norm-refer-enced tests.

New Hampshire X X X

New Jersey X X X X X X X

New Mexico X X X

New York X X X X X X X X Assessment program is goingthrough major revisions.

North Carolina X X X X X X X X NRT Testing selects samplesof students, not all.

17

STATE KG 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 COMMENT

North Dakota X X X X

Ohio X X X

Oklahoma X X X X X

Oregon X X X X

Pennsylvania X X X X X

Rhode Island X X X X X X X X

South Carolina X X X X X X X X *** *** ***Students who fail theHigh School Exit Examhave opportunities to takethe exam again in Grades 11and 12.

South Dakota X X X X X X

Tennessee X X X X X X X

18

STATE KG 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 COMMENT

Texas X X X X X X X X X

Utah X X X X X X X X X X X X

Vermont X X X X X X X Rated by the Centers for Fairand Open Testing as a nearlymodel system for assess-ment.

Virginia X X X X X X X

Washington X X X

West Virginia X X X X X X X X X

Wisconsin X X X

Wyoming X X X

19

The “Big Four”If your state requires standardized testing, your child willalmost certainly take tests from one of four commerciallyavailable testing packages:

• TerraNova (which includes one version featuring theComprehensive Tests of Basic Skills and the other featur-ing the California Achievement Test)

• Iowa Tests of Basic Skills• Metropolitan Achievement Test• Stanford Achievement Test

This book will discuss each of these tests and how to inter-pret their scores, and it will also review aptitude testing.

20 Introduction

C H A P T E R

Help Your Child Succeed

Most of us remember the days when we took group stan-dardized tests in school. We moved into and out of

reading groups and were placed into high, middle, or lowsections of our classes mainly based on our teacher’s judg-ment. We walked across the stage and received our highschool diplomas if we earned passing grades in the requiredsubjects, and no one asked us whether we had passed anexit test.

It’s a different world today. Many school districts andstates today use standardized tests to determine what levelof classes children should attend, what classes are open tothem, and even whether they may graduate. Governmentofficials have recommended expanding standardized testingto all school districts,with stricter consequences for low stu-dent scores.

1

21


Tricks and GimmicksFor years, rumors of various “tricks”and techniques that sup-posedly give students an advantage in answering questionswhen they don’t know the answers have floated about.Some authors came up with statistical analyses of past stan-dardized tests and advised students that when in doubt, theyshould never answer D, for example.

In the past, some of those techniques were valid. Sometest producers unintentionally constructed tests in such away that they created predictable answer patterns.Test pro-ducers today are on the lookout for test response patternsand take steps to avoid them.The strategies of yesterday justdon’t work anymore.

How to Raise Test ScoresThere are only two legitimate ways to help students score ashigh as possible on group standardized tests:

1. Help your child become as strong as possible in the aca-demic areas the tests evaluate.

2. Eliminate any factors that hamper your child’s perfor-mance.

Making students academically stronger is something youshould strive for every day. Since the tests are supposed toassess a very broad curriculum, it makes sense that you canbest raise your children’s test scores by helping them learnas much as possible.

But removing factors that interfere with your child’s testperformance is something most parents don’t think about.In the following sections, we’ll explore ways of accomplish-ing both.

22 Chapter 1

Before the TestYou may hear experts recommending that you change yourchild’s diet, bedtime, and exercise routine before he or shetakes a standardized test—but that’s a mistake. Instead,decide that you want to help your child be better preparedin mind and body to do well in school, not just on standard-ized tests. Look at your child’s lifestyle and try to identifyareas that you need to change to make him or her a betterstudent in general,and make any changes as soon as possible.

Sleep Well

The vast majority of children and adolescents are sleep-deprived, according to research. Many children stay up latesurfing the Internet, stay late at school for lessons or activi-ties, or stay up late to watch a favorite TV show. Sleep depri-vation can take its toll, and you will see some pretty dramat-ic effects of even small amounts of sleep loss that is spreadout over weeks and months.Children with even minor sleepdeprivation have trouble paying attention, rememberingwhat they have read, making good decisions, and under-standing new concepts.

However, don’t wait until the night before the test tosend your child to bed early. Instead, make any changes inbedtime gradually—weeks before the test. If your fourthgrader is staying up past 11 p.m. each night and you want toshoot for a 9:30 p.m. bedtime, start by having him go to bedat 10:30 p.m. this week, then 10 p.m. next week, and then9:30 p.m. the following week.

You may have to make the change even more gradual-ly—perhaps in 15-minute increments, week by week. Thepoint is that you want to make sure you don’t present a dis-ruption the night before the test.

Help Your Child Succeed 23

Eat Right

Is your child a picky eater? As you ferry your child fromschool to soccer practice to oboe lessons, you both proba-bly grab a handful of whatever is quick and convenient.Medical studies are revealing that even many young childrenhave the beginnings of coronary artery disease.

Our eating habits are making us fat, but they are alsointerfering with our attention, our memory, and our com-prehension. Children with poor eating habits perform morepoorly in school, and hence more poorly on standardizedtests.

Take a look at your child’s dietary habits and see whatyou need to change—then make the change weeks beforeimportant events such as standardized tests. If your child isused to eating a piece of toast and slugging down a softdrink in the car on the way to school, suddenly presentinghim with a good breakfast on the morning of the test willdisrupt his ability to do well.

If he’s not accustomed to eating a lot of protein in themorning, a high-protein breakfast will make him sleepy andmay give him a stomachache. If he’s accustomed to sugarycereal or a toaster pastry and you give him whole-grain cere-al with wheat germ and yogurt on the side, he might havetrouble digesting it all.

Identify the best eating habits for an efficient learnerand implement as many changes as you can weeks inadvance.Good nutrition is beyond the scope of this book, sowe’ll leave it to you to identify a good, healthy diet for yourfamily. But be aware that proper nutrition can greatlyincrease your child’s ability to learn, and poor nutrition cancripple that ability.

24 Chapter 1

Be Fit

It’s a sad fact:Many of our children today are becoming couchpotatoes.Unfortunately, in many parts of the country physicaleducation classes are either few or nonexistent in the ele-mentary grades.Even in middle and high school,students onlytake physical education for part of the year, and once theyhave satisfied their P.E. requirement, never take it again.

Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the former Air Force cardiologistwho popularized aerobics exercise programs, has docu-mented the benefits of aerobic fitness, including mental clar-ity, increased ability to focus attention, and the physicalendurance to work for long periods of time. Dr. Cooper andothers have demonstrated time and again that people whoare physically fit learn better, retain information longer, andare happier about learning than their nonfit peers. Studentswho are aerobically fit say they are just plain better students.

Look at your child’s exercise habits. Is she getting at least40 minutes of sustained physical activity four to six times aweek? If not, look into available programs. Community andlocal organizations sponsor sports teams, karate classes,bicycle clubs, skate parties, and all sorts of other activitiesfor your child.Talk to an exercise trainer, your pediatrician,or your child’s physical education teacher. Find a programfor your child and encourage her to put down the videogame controller, get off the couch, and get physical.

Does your daughter enjoy ice skating? Many ice-skatingrinks offer skating lessons and have skating leagues. Doesyour son enjoy watching hockey on TV? Find an age-appro-priate hockey league.

The point here is to get your child’s heart pumping andblood flowing. It doesn’t have to be organized sports, and it


doesn’t matter what type of exercise—just make sure yourchild enjoys doing it so he or she will continue.

Emotions

As important as it is to do well on standardized tests,keep inmind that your child is still a child, with a child’s emotionsand need to feel good about himself. He still has a child’sneed for play. Remember that all work and no play makesJack a disgruntled student who has trouble paying attentionand who won’t do as well on tests as he could if he had a lit-tle joy in his life.

If your child has adopted an all-work-and-no-playlifestyle, encourage her to do something that gives her plea-sure each day. Happy children do better in school and lovelearning.

Make sure that your child doesn’t suffer from test anxi-ety. Most students feel some degree of apprehension, whichis normal.However,a few rare students become so paralyzedwith fear when confronted with a test that they can’t per-form. Impress on your child that the tests are important, butdon’t let her see you wringing your hands over them, anddon’t desperately badger her about doing her best.

If your child tells you he’s worried about the tests, or ifyou see signs of anxiety, reassure your child as best you can.Point out how hard he’s been working in school. If he’sdoing well in school, chances are he’ll do well on the stan-dardized tests, too.

If your child stops eating, lies awake at night worryingabout the tests, or seems to be depressed about doing poor-ly, you need to get some professional help.Talk to her pedia-trician, who can discuss appropriate treatments. If outsidecounseling seems appropriate, your child’s pediatrician will

26 Chapter 1

know which professionals in your town are trained to coun-sel children. Or look in the Yellow Pages for psychologistsand psychiatrists who specialize in working with children’sanxiety.

Answer Sheet Savvy

Your child may not have any worries about the tests,but canhe fill in the answer sheets correctly? Sometimes the opticalscanning equipment can’t accurately determine children’sanswers. Perhaps your child has too many erasures on heranswer sheet.Or maybe her attempt to fill in a bubble on thesheet was too sloppy.You may want to practice bubbling inanswers with your child. Use the practice sheet in Figure 1-1 to determine whether your child can fill in the bubblesappropriately.

Figure 1-1 Bubbling-In Practice Sheet

The practice sheet includes most of the shapes that childrenwould normally encounter on test optical scanning sheets.Have your child practice both filling in and erasing marks onthe practice sheet to make sure that she fills in the shapescompletely and that she erases completely.

Ideally, your first concern should be to help your childbecome as strong as possible academically instead of wor-rying about how well he performs on standardized tests.Butif you want to get a sense of the areas in which your child

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will be tested, Chapters 8 through 12 discuss major com-mercial tests your child might encounter and describe thebroad academic areas that each test assesses. You also canlook over the parent information booklet that some schoolssend home before testing. Such booklets generally provideinformation on what areas the tests will evaluate.

Identify Weak Skills

Most parents know if their child is a poor reader or reallystrong in math. Look over your child’s report cards. Is therea particular subject area that consistently needs work? Lookfor any teacher comments.Notes such as “Jimmy just doesn’tseem to understand multiplication,” or “Janie reads wordswell, but she has problems with understanding what shereads,” can alert you to weak areas.

Talk to your child. Do any of his subjects frustrate him?Many children are astute judges of their own strengths andweaknesses and can give you valuable insights.

Talk to your child’s teacher. If you’re worried about spe-cific grades or you notice that your child consistently strug-gles with homework in the same subjects, the teacher cantell you whether or not others in the class are having similarproblems. Maybe the school has adopted a new math cur-riculum that everyone is struggling with. Or maybe theschool district has implemented stricter grading guidelinesso that last year’s “above average” is this year’s “average.”Perhaps your child is in an honors class in which an “aver-age” is equal to an “excellent” in regular courses.Your child’steacher can also discuss what you can do at home to rein-force what your child does at school.

Look over your child’s past standardized test results. (Ifyou can’t find them, the guidance counselor will have

28 Chapter 1

copies.) Skip ahead to Chapter 3 and use the guidelinesgiven in the chapter to interpret the scores and identify yourchild’s strengths and weaknesses. Do you see particular pat-terns? These past reports can help you identify areas onwhich he might score lower on upcoming tests.

Study Skills

One of the best ways for your child to become a better stu-dent is to take advantage of what teachers are trying toteach.That sounds pretty obvious, but if children don’t havethe skills to understand, organize, and study the materialthey’re given, it doesn’t matter how good the instructionalprogram or how competent the teacher.

As you help your child with her homework, assess herstudy skills. How does she approach homework? Is she slop-py and disorganized? Does she often forget to bring homethe right textbook? Maybe she can only complete assign-ments when someone is standing over her and telling herwhat to do.

Make sure your child understands how to organizeschoolwork. Does his teacher require color-coded file fold-ers or a different spiral-bound notebook for each subject?Maybe your child is supposed to use one giant three-ringbinder with divider tabs separating the subjects.

If you have younger children, you may have to orga-nize the materials for them at first.As you proceed, involvethem in the organization and discuss why you are puttingthe papers where you’re putting them.You may have to gothrough your children’s backpacks every day after schooland show them where to put all the stray papers, work-sheets, and handouts. Then repeat the procedure afterhomework is finished by placing homework papers where


they should go. Even many older students don’t knowhow to organize their materials and can benefit fromsome help.

Preparing for Classroom Tests

Does your child know how to review the homework onceshe has organized it? Many children don’t realize that onereason they organize their materials is to help them reviewfor classroom tests. Show your child how to check thehomework assignment, worksheets, and handouts to get anidea what the teacher thinks is important and to prepare fortests. Often, making a grand outline, concept map, or topiclist of the concepts covered will help your child understandthe logical organization of the material.

Taking Notes

Most teachers don’t expect children to be able to take notesin elementary school, but they do expect them to begin tobe learning to take notes by middle school.

To many students, note taking is a difficult skill, espe-cially if they were never taught how to take notes. Many stu-dents have trouble summarizing, and they try to write downevery word the teacher says. Others don’t take any notesbecause they aren’t sure what’s important.Ask your child’steacher if note taking is something your child should bedoing.

Reading

A problem in reading can hold your child back in more thanjust language arts. Does your child read well? How is her

30 Chapter 1

vocabulary? Does she understand what she reads? Even ifyou receive precious little information on how well yourchild is doing in other subjects, you are likely to receivedetailed feedback on how well she reads. If your child has aproblem reading, ask her teacher what you can do at hometo help and whether your child needs a tutor.

Reading to your child is one of the best ways to preparehim for a lifetime of learning.Most of us read to our childrenwhen they are small, but even children beyond third orfourth grade still enjoy being read to. Your child probablyhas favorite books he wants you to read over and over, butfind other books on a wide range of topics and read them aswell. Find out what interests your child.When you go to thelibrary or the bookstore, have him help you pick out bookshe will be interested in having you read to him.

As your child gets older, have him participate in reading.You read a paragraph and then have your child read the nextone. Eventually, he can take over most of the reading, andyou can be there to define words he doesn’t know.Encourage your child to read a wide range of books, maga-zines, and newsletters.

If your child enjoys the Internet, find some sites thatcater especially to children (such as www.familyplanet.com),where your child can find age-appropriate stories, news forchildren, and fun activities. For some reason, many childrenare much more motivated to read material online than theyare in their books.

Visit the library regularly, and make sure your child hashis own library card. Some libraries issue children librarycards as soon as they are old enough to ask for them; othershave age restrictions.When you go to the library, make sureyour child knows where to find books appropriate for hisage.


Classroom Skills

Make sure your child has strong classroom skills. One of themost important classroom skills is listening.Walk down thehallways of any school at any grade level and peep into theclassrooms.You’ll see some students looking around or play-ing, and a few will even have their heads down on the desk.No wonder that when their parents ask them what theylearned at school that day, they say,“Nothing.”

It doesn’t matter how good the curriculum is if yourchild doesn’t listen. Look at comments on her report card:Do several teachers make note that she’s not a good listen-er? If your child has serious problems listening, you need torule out hearing problems and attention deficit disorder.Most children receive hearing screenings when they beginschool. If it’s been some time since your child had a hearingtest, ask for one. If your child seems to have a hearing prob-lem, school personnel or your pediatrician can refer you forfurther diagnostic evaluations.

If you think your child has attention deficit disorder, dis-cuss your concerns with both your child’s teacher and hispediatrician. If inattentiveness is causing major disruptionsin your child’s life, it may be necessary to have both his pedi-atrician and a qualified psychologist perform diagnostictests.

In many cases, you’ll find that your child is not listeningwell in school because he has never learned how to listen.Listening is like any other skill—you must learn how to doit well. It may help to practice listening skills, especially withyounger children.

While you read to your young child, stop from time totime and ask her to repeat the story. It’s not necessary forher to repeat the story word for word; paraphrasing the

32 Chapter 1

story accurately in her own words is a more productive skill.Play car games such as “I’m going to repeat 10 words, and Iwant to see who can remember the most.”While your childis watching a favorite TV program, ask her from time to timeto tell you what she heard.

Another important classroom skill is asking questions.Many students miss out on valuable information in schoolbecause they are afraid or reluctant to ask questions. Makesure your child knows that most teachers welcome ques-tions. Questions show that students are interested in whatthey are learning and care enough to make sure they under-stand it.Tell the teacher if your child is afraid to ask ques-tions.

On Test Day

Test Morning

Do what you can to help your child minimize conflict on themorning of the test.Don’t choose that morning to take awayyour teenager’s car keys because his interim grade report isdismal,or to ground him for breaking curfew last week. If hehas been having conflicts with another child on the bus,drive him to school.

Do what you can to help your child be as relaxed as pos-sible on the morning of the test. Encourage her to dresscomfortably in her favorite clothes and comfortable shoes.Make sure she has readied the necessary clothes and sup-plies the evening before so that she doesn’t have to rush thenext morning.

If your child seems nervous on the morning of the test,don’t brush aside his fears. Listen to his feelings. Encouragehim to remember how well he’s doing in school;don’t dwell


on his anxieties. After you have listened to his concerns andmade attempts to reassure him and divert his attention,move on. Hand him his lunch, wish him a good day, and saygood-bye.

There are some other things that you can do on themorning of the test that will help your child. Make sure shewears her watch so she can keep track of how much longershe has on the test.

Have your child take a handkerchief or tissues. If hedevelops a runny nose and must get up and run to theteacher’s desk to get tissues, that will disrupt his progressthrough the test and take time away from reading andanswering questions.

Have her take extra, sharpened pencils. Having to get upcontinually to sharpen pencils will take time away from thetest and disrupt her flow of thoughts.

During the TestThis section contains advice for your child. Depending onhis age, you might read over this section and then teachthese points to your child—or have him read this section forhimself.

Following Directions

Make sure your child understands the importance of follow-ing test directions. It’s crucial that she listen to the teacher’sdirections so that she knows what she is supposed to do.

It’s also necessary with some students to make sure theytake the tests seriously. School administrators frequentlyreport that students either leave their test papers blank oruse the bubbles to make pictures. Some have produced

34 Chapter 1

beautiful pictures of horses, houses, and people by selec-tively filling in bubbles. But, of course, their answers meantnothing. Teachers report that some students sit with theirheads down and don’t respond to the tests at all. Make surethat your child understands that the tests are important andthat he must make every effort to do his best.

Test Questions

Your child should read the entire question before answer-ing. Many students hastily answer questions and miss vitalinformation about what the questions are really asking. If thequestion is a multiple choice, your child should read all thepossible answers before choosing one—there may be clueswithin the body of the question or in the answers that canpoint to the correct answer. Students should be wary ofabsolutes such as always and never.

If your child isn’t sure about an answer and test instruc-tions allow her to mark in her test booklet, she should flagthe question and return to it later. She should answer ques-tions she knows first and then use any time left over toreturn to the questions she has flagged.

A related strategy to the one above is useful with multi-ple-choice test questions. If your child is confronted with amultiple-choice question and can’t choose the correctanswer, suggest that he cross out the answers that he knowsare incorrect.That way he will be faced with choosing fromfewer options without distraction by the answers he knowsare wrong.

If a student thinks that she should change an answer, sheshould do so. Research has shown that students more oftenchange their answers from incorrect ones to correct onesthan from correct ones to incorrect ones. But your child


should make sure that she completely erases the originalanswer mark on the answer sheet,or the computer won’t beable to discriminate which answer was intended.

Your child should be on guard for distractors—pieces ofinformation in the question or the answer alternatives thatdraw the student’s attention away from what is really impor-tant. For example, consider the following test question:

1 The bus stopped once on Wildmere Way, twice onCamelot Drive, and twice on Reidville Road. Thedriver’s name was Gus, and Gus was 49 years old.How many times did the bus stop?

[Answer: 5]

The sentence “The driver’s name was Gus, and Gus was 49years old” is a distractor: It isn’t relevant to solving the prob-lem. After reading the questions, the astute test taker willignore that sentence and focus instead on the first sentence,which tells him that the bus stopped five times.

One useful strategy students can use in determiningwhether an answer is correct is to simply ask themselves,“Does it look right?” or “Does it sound right?”This strategycan be particularly useful when the student is stumped.

Accompanying artwork usually provides useful informa-tion that can suggest the correct answer.Many students rushthrough questions and try to answer them without payingattention to artwork. Test publishers don’t put the art inthere for no reason.

For example, on a standardized test asking questionsabout distance, there might be a map of two towns—Greerand Bellville, with Maplewood in between. On the map, itappears that Maplewood is about a third of the distance

36 Chapter 1

from Bellville than Greer is.Consider the following multiple-choice question:

1 Greer and Bellville are 21 miles apart on Highway290. T. J. drove 30 miles an hour from Greer toBellville. He reached the town of Maplewood in 27minutes. How long should it take him to go fromMaplewood to Bellville?A 28 minutesB 15 minutesC 60 minutesD 5 minutes

Students who are strong in math could figure out thisproblem just by the way the question is worded.But the stu-dent who’s not so good in math could look at the map andsee that Maplewood is about twice as far from Greer as it isfrom Bellville, so it should be half as far from Maplewood toBellville as it is from Greer to Maplewood, or about 131/2

minutes. Since answer B, 15 minutes, is the closest to 131/2

minutes, the astute student can reasonably conclude that Bis the correct answer.



C H A P T E R

Scoping Out TestQuestions

We’ve all had experience in taking standardized tests,but have you ever wondered just who it is who’s

responsible for coming up with those questions?Constructing questions for standardized tests is both a sci-ence and an art.

In regard to the science of constructing a test,researchers have discovered how students approach testquestions, what elements of the questions encourage themto respond in certain ways, and what elements make it morelikely that students’ answers will accurately reflect whatthey know.

Basically, test makers want to find out what studentsknow. To do this, they use advanced statistical methods toconstruct test questions that are technically sound. Eachyear,after thousands of students have taken the tests, the test

2

39


makers get to work analyzing the results to learn whichquestions help them accurately determine what studentsknow.They also develop ways to help identify answer sheetson which students have marked their answers in a randommanner.

But there is an art to constructing test questions as well.Realizing that many students find standardized tests boringand don’t try to do well, test makers try to get as creative asthey can to develop interesting questions and graphs,charts,and pictures.

Types of Test QuestionsWhether it’s in the classroom or on a standardized form,test-ing relies on two primary types of questions: recognitionquestions and recall questions.

Recognition

Because standardized test questions must be written so thatcomputers can score them, recognition questions are usual-ly the questions of choice. Recognition questions can beconstructed so that students can answer them simply,by col-oring in bubbles on answer sheets.

Typically on standardized tests, the test taker must rec-ognize the correct answer from a group of alternatives, allbut one of which is incorrect.Although it would be possibleto simply offer a series of true/false questions, standardizedachievement tests generally avoid them. Rather, they employmultiple-choice questions, usually with four or five alterna-tives labeled A through D or E. For example:

40 Chapter 2

1 What is George Washington’s nickname?A King of the GypsiesB Father of Our CountryC Great EmancipatorD Clown Prince of Baseball

A child’s success with such questions only depends onthe ability to recognize the correct answer among a groupof incorrect ones.

There are several important elements of multiple-choicequestions: stems, options, and distractors.

Stems. The text of the question is the stem. “What isGeorge Washington’s nickname?” is a stem. In longer ques-tions, the stem may include multiple sentences, requiringthe child to sift through large amounts of information todetermine what is relevant to answering the question. Forexample, the stem may be something such as:

2 Carol went to visit her grandmother, who lives inSpringfield. She and her daughter Kara first took ataxi to the train station, and then they took thetrain from Greely to Johnson City. From there, theytook a commuter flight to Harleyville. They renteda car in Harleyville and drove to Carol’s grand-mother’s house in Springfield, which is 60 milesfrom the airport.

There is a lot of information in the sample questionabove. If we are asking what relation is Kara to Carol’s grand-mother, your child must be able to figure out that all the

Scoping Out Test Questions 41

information about transportation and the distance fromSpringfield to the airport is irrelevant to answering the ques-tion, and that the only pertinent information is that (1) theyare visiting Carol’s grandmother and (2) Kara is Carol’sdaughter. However, if the question asks how many differenttypes of transportation Carol and Kara took, the informationabout whom they are visiting and how far Springfield isfrom the airport is irrelevant.

Many children have problems with stems because theydon’t read all the information, or they read it and don’t sep-arate the relevant from the irrelevant. Imagine Bill’s conster-nation when he selects D as the correct answer to the fol-lowing question:

3 Martin Luther King, Jr., was neverA President of the United States.B a resident of Atlanta, Georgia.C a father.D a minister.

[Answer: A]

Bill may know full well that Dr. King was a minister, butperhaps he rushes through the question and does not noticethe word never. Many children rush through and answerquestions without understanding or paying attention to allthe information the stems contain.

Options. These are the answer alternatives from whichthe student gets to choose. Some alternatives are straightfor-ward and require the child to choose the correct answerfrom among different alternatives. For example:

42 Chapter 2

4 George Washington was the firstA person to walk on the moon.B author to write a novel in the English language.C President of the United States.D husband of actress Julia Roberts.

[Answer: C]

Other questions may offer options that are very similar.For example:

5 Before becoming President in 1992, WilliamJefferson Clinton was theA U.S. Senator from Arkansas.B U.S. Representative from Arkansas.C Governor of Arkansas.D Chief Justice of the Arkansas State Supreme

Court.

[Answer: C]

In the above example, most students are likely to knowthat former President Clinton is from Arkansas and servedin some elected office in that state, but they may not recallexactly what office. In this example, the child must demon-strate a more exact knowledge of the President’s back-ground than if the options presented more dissimilarchoices such as:

A Governor of ArkansasB quarterback of the Carolina PanthersC star of the TV show FrasierD lead guitarist for The Stray Cats


Distractors. Distractors are options that confuse or mis-lead those who are unsure about their answers. They canhelp separate out those who actually have a strong knowl-edge of the subject from those who have a shaky knowl-edge. For example:

6 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was theA Prime Minister of England.B first husband of Princess Anne of England.C actress Catherine Zeta-Jones’ husband.D author of the Sherlock Holmes books.

[Answer: D]

The person who is not very familiar with the name SirArthur Conan Doyle will see the title “Sir” and the British-sounding name and surmise that this person probably hassome connection with Great Britain. All the options couldbe plausible answers to someone who is unsure of the correct answer.

The wise student will know how to deal with distractorsby eliminating the impossible answers first. If permitted, hewill cross out the impossible answers on the test booklet tonarrow down the options.

In the above example, perhaps the older child knowsthat Michael Douglas is Catherine Zeta-Jones’ husband andcrosses out that option, narrowing the options to threeinstead of four. Now the student would have a one in threechance of choosing the correct answer rather than one infour. If he could eliminate one more answer as being impos-sible, he could narrow the odds to one in two.

44 Chapter 2

Recall

The second type of question, recall, consists of two maintypes of questions: short-answer and essay questions. Bothtypes require a deeper understanding of subject matter thando recognition questions and, in many cases, an even deep-er understanding that allows the test taker to synthesize theinformation and make informed judgments.

Short-Answer Questions. These questions require thatthe test taker provide brief answers, ranging from singlewords to only a sentence or two—for example,“Who deliv-ered the Gettysburg Address?” Short-answer questions canbe very effective teaching tools. Such questions encouragestudents to dig deeper into their understanding of the mate-rial.

Essay Questions. From the standpoint of testing depth oflearning, essay questions are at the top of the heap. Theyrequire the test taker not only to have a thorough under-standing of the subject but to be able to apply and organizethe information.An essay question might ask:“In two pagesor less, describe the major conflicts, besides slavery, that ledto the Civil War.” Or perhaps the question will ask the testtaker to demonstrate the ability to analyze complex infor-mation, such as “Was the practice of affirmative action fair?Justify your answer, for or against, using the United StatesConstitution.”

Of course, the major disadvantage of short-answer andessay questions is that they can’t be scored by machines.Atpresent, it’s impossible to provide short answers on opticalscanning sheets.


Answers to essay questions pose even greater obstacles,because the scoring is highly subjective. How can someoneobjectively score an essay about a favorite memory? Wecould count incorrectly spelled words, incorrect punctua-tion, or examples of inconsistent tense, but otherwise wemight as well grit our teeth and admit that the criteria areextremely subjective.Scoring these questions is a more time-consuming process and is more susceptible to error than isobjective scoring.

In fact, most states use written general criteria (such as“logical development of ideas” and “clear expression ofthoughts”). Most also use teams of scorers who have beenthoroughly trained in how to score the responses, so thateach short-answer and essay question is scored by morethan one person. Such practices can lower the likelihood ofvariability among scorers, but they cannot eliminate them.So test makers would say that scores on short-answer andessay questions are less reliable than objectively scoredquestions.

Subject AreasThe days when standardized tests only asked questions aboutword recognition, spelling, and arithmetic are long gone.Today,tests assess many different subjects.Some standardizedtest publishers offer modular systems with a core test of read-ing, spelling, and math questions; school districts can thenadd other components, such as study skills, social studies, orscience. Other tests come with prepackaged components,and school districts use all components or none of them.

Nevertheless, there are some subjects that all studentswho take standardized tests will commonly encounter. Let’slook at some of the subjects that standardized tests willassess.

46 Chapter 2

Reading

Reading is guaranteed to be on every standardized test.Testsgenerally assess both letter-word identification and readingcomprehension. Letter-word identification may go by othernames such as basic reading skill or word recognition. Itinvolves the ability to identify letters or words.

Depending on the age of the students assessed, this sec-tion of tests will present letters or words and ask students toidentify them. For example:

1 Which picture goes with the letter f?

A B

C D

[Answer: B]

Reading comprehension refers to the ability to under-stand the meaning of a written passage. This skill requiresyour child to recognize words and also to piece together thedifferent elements to understand the whole meaning.

Reading comprehension is the ability to understand themeaning of all those separate words when they are com-bined in a certain way. Sometimes (especially with olderstudents) reading comprehension questions will requirethe student to read the passage and draw conclusions. Forexample:


2 Oeshaun was walking in the woods when he saw apretty plant growing up a tree. He picked the leavesand carried them home to show his mother. Whenshe saw the leaves, she became upset and toldOeshaun to put them in the garbage. She madeOeshaun take a bath and change his clothes. Thenext day, he broke out with a rash all over his body.He itched terribly. He had to go to the doctor andget medicine to help him feel better. What plant didOeshaun pick in the woods?A daffodilsB holly leavesC rosesD poison ivy

[Answer: D]

Math

Most standardized tests assess mathematics calculation andmathematics reasoning. Mathematics calculation may goby different names, such as mathematics operations orbasic mathematics.

In early grades, the tests try to determine whether stu-dents understand basic mathematical symbols and can per-form simple addition and subtraction. In later elementarygrades, questions will require students to multiply anddivide. By late high school, questions may include complexalgebra, calculus, and trigonometry.

Mathematics calculation items are usually very straight-forward.The biggest problem that students encounter withsuch questions, other than simply not knowing how to dothe calculations, is not paying attention.Some students don’t

48 Chapter 2

pay attention to the signs of operation and answer “3 × 5”asif it were “3 + 5.” Other children rush through without tak-ing the time to think about their answers.

Mathematics reasoning goes a step beyond simple cal-culation and usually involves word problems. To answer aword problem, a child must read the problem and under-stand the steps involved in solving it. For instance:

1 Sung Duk invited his friends Bill and Ahmed to goto the zoo with him. If tickets for children are $4.00each, how much did all three boys’ tickets cost?

For students to solve this problem, they must be able totranslate the problem into a math calculation problem, mul-tiplying 3 boys times $4.00 each. To solve such problems,students not only must be able to perform the necessary cal-culations, but must be able to understand the elements ofthe question.

Many students don’t know how to read figures such asbar charts, pie charts, or graphs. Others pay only scant atten-tion to them and don’t glean the information from them thatthey need to accurately work the problem. Students musttake the time to thoroughly read the questions and study anyaccompanying graphics to help solve the problems.

SpellingIt’s odd that adults who would be ashamed to admit theycouldn’t read will freely admit to an inability to spell.Spelling ability is difficult to assess with most standardizedtests because those tests use multiple-choice questions. Atmost, such questions only assess how well children can rec-ognize correct spelling, not whether they can produce cor-rect spelling from memory. In many classrooms, this lack of


emphasis on recall spelling has resulted in a de-emphasis onsuch skills in the classroom.

Students are most likely to encounter questions such asthese:

1 In the produce section of a grocery store you canusually find a ____?A cantalopeB cantellopeC cantilopeD cantaloupe

[Answer: D]

2 In the spring Vanessa liked to pick _______.A daffydillsB dafodillsC daffodilsD daphodyls

[Answer: C]

It is on a criterion-referenced test that students are mostlikely to answer spelling questions that test their ability torecall the correct spelling. However, it’s hard to come upwith questions to elicit correct answers. For example, thequestion “How do you spell the word for car that is pro-nounced aw-to-mo-bill?” presents a problem in that the pho-netic spelling of the pronunciation gives the student valu-able hints about how to spell the word. If we present a pic-ture of a mountain and ask “How do you spell what is in thepicture?” students might not understand that the word weare looking for is mountain and may spell p-e-a-k.

50 Chapter 2

More commonly, criterion-referenced tests will assessrecall spelling by having the proctor dictate the words.

Language

Language sections (also called language mechanics or com-munication) include testing of grammar and sentence con-struction, vocabulary, expression, and listening compre-hension. Grammar and sentence-construction questions tryto determine whether students have mastered the rules forstatement construction. For example, a test may ask:

1 Choose the correct sentence.A Johnny does not have any money.B Johnny ain’t got no money.C Johnny does not have no money.D Johnny has none money.

[Answer: A]

2 Choose the correct word to go in the blank.

Tammy likes to visit her friend Juan. Yesterday, she_______ to Juan’s house.A goedB go’dC wentedD went

[Answer: D]

Grammar and sentence-construction questions on crite-rion-referenced tests will frequently resemble these:


3 Fill in the blank in each of the following sentenceswith a correct word.Maria was born on April 12. Helmut was ________on the same day.

[Answer: born]Caroline __________ down the street after herpuppy.

[Answer: ran; walked; sprinted; trotted]

Note that in these examples, the student must recall thecorrect form of a word. Now look at these examples:

4 Rewrite these sentences so that they are correct.Lakeisha, was the First in line she paid her. Moneyand go’d into the movie.

[Answer: Lakeisha was the first in line. She paid hermoney and went into the movie.]

The advantage of this type of question is that it canassess the student’s knowledge of several elements of gram-mar and sentence construction at the same time, includingtense, capitalization, and placement of punctuation.

Vocabulary refers to the repertoire of words that stu-dents use or understand.A question gauging this skill, moretypically found on criterion-referenced tests, may resemblethe following:

5 Write the word that means to determine how long apiece of wood is by using a yardstick.

[Answer: measure]

6 What word means a piece of wood used to hit abaseball?

[Answer: bat]

52 Chapter 2

The term receptive vocabulary refers to words that stu-dents recognize and understand. For example:

7 Look at the pictures below. Choose the picture of acanine.

A B

C D

[Answer: A]

8 Which word means to work with someone afterschool to help them learn better?A cipherB tutorC coagulateD regulate

[Answer: B]

Notice that this type of question only requires studentsto recognize the word when they see it. It requires only asuperficial knowledge of vocabulary. Your child’s perfor-mance on such questions only estimates her ability to under-stand the vocabulary that others use. It doesn’t say anythingabout the quality of the vocabulary that they use.The abovequestions are typical of the major commercial group stan-dardized tests because they lend themselves very readily tomachine scoring.


Language expression is very difficult to assess on teststhat require multiple-choice questions. Short-answer andessay questions are more appropriate for gauging this skill,but these questions require a subjective scoring of studentresponses and can’t be scored by machine.Language-expres-sion questions are rare on norm-referenced tests, whichalmost always demand multiple-choice questions.

The most common subset of language expression thatcriterion-referenced tests assess is written expression; mostuse a combination of short-answer and essay questions suchas these:

[short answer]

9 Write a complete sentence giving one reason whychildren should not accept rides from strangers.

[Criterion: Any grammatically correct sentence givinga plausible reason.]

[essay]

10 In one page or less, describe your favorite memory.

The advantage of short-answer and essay questions inassessing written expression is that they give the student anopportunity to demonstrate a much deeper level of skillsthan do multiple-choice tests. By completing short-answerquestions, students can show that they can construct prop-er sentences that actually make sense. By completing essayquestions, students can show not only a basic understandingbut information analysis and synthesis.

Listening comprehension requires that students listen tosomeone read a passage, discriminate essential from

54 Chapter 2

nonessential details, and reconstruct the meaning of the pas-sages. In the past, standardized tests didn’t include listeningcomprehension questions because they require an extrastep of having a test proctor read passages or play a prere-corded tape.

The test typically asks one or two questions on shorterpassages, and more with longer samples.Here are two exam-ples of listening comprehension questions:

[short passage read to the students]

11 Nibbles lives in a cage in Ross’s bedroom. He sleepsduring the day and runs on his wheel all night. Helikes to eat peanuts. Grandmother Steele is afraidto pick him up. What kind of animal could Nibblesbe?

[Acceptable answers: hamster, mouse, gerbil]

[long passage read to the students]

Bill moved from the big city to the country. He lookedaround for a park to play in, but there were no parksnearby. All his friends had nice, big yards to play in,and there were woods with creeks and ponds to explore.One day, when Bill and his friends were playing atFletcher’s Pond, Bill’s friend Heyward fell into the pondand began to scream for help. Anna, Heyward’s sister,screamed, “He can’t swim! Save him!”

Bill had taken lifeguard lessons when he lived in thecity. He jumped into the pond and swam over toHeyward. Heyward was scared and tried to fight, butfortunately Bill was ready for this. Bill’s lifeguardinstructor had taught him that people who can’t swimand who fall into water usually fight those who try tosave them. Bill knew how to grab Heyward from


behind, and he swam back to shore with him. Heywardwas all right, but his mother took Anna and him to theYMCA the next day to sign them up for swimminglessons.

12 Bill moved from where to where?A from the country to the cityB from Europe to the United StatesC from Mexico to TexasD from the city to the country

[Answer: D]

13 Why were there no parks to play in where Billmoved?A He and the other children he knew all had big

yards to play in.B There were parks, but his mother would not

allow him to play in them.C The city council where he moved would not

approve the money for parks.D There was no room to build a park because there

were too many houses.

[Answer: A]

14 What happened to the boy who fell into the pond?A He drowned.B Bill rescued him.C Bill ran for help, and Mr. Fletcher jumped in and

saved him.D He found a rock and managed to climb up on it.

[Answer: B]

56 Chapter 2

Other Subjects

Most norm-referenced and criterion-referenced tests pro-vide additional testing that varies from test to test. Several ofthe major standardized tests offer these additional tests inmodular packages that school districts can elect to buy ornot.Two of the more common additional test areas are sci-ence and social studies.

Science test questions, depending on the grade level ofthe students, will assess a wide range of knowledge includ-ing earth science, physical science, chemistry, and physics.Science is a subject that allows the full use of multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay questions. Most norm-refer-enced tests use multiple-choice questions, and criterion-ref-erenced tests use a mixture of multiple-choice,short-answer,and essay questions.

Typical science questions would resemble these exam-ples:

1 In the formula for water, H2O, what do the H andthe O represent?A helium and oxygenB hydrogen and organaseC hydrogen and oxygenD helium and organase

[Answer: C]

2 Where is the Orion Nebula located?

[Answer: in the belt in the Orion constellation]


3 In one page or less, describe the stages of develop-ment of a baby from conception to birth. Use dia-grams if you think they help.

As with science, social studies lends itself very well tothe whole range of question types, including multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay questions. They assess notonly factual understanding but, depending on the gradelevel of the students being tested, the ability to read mapsand understand such complex concepts as political trends,emigration patterns, and controversies.

For example:

1 Who conquered the British Isles in 1066?A William the BruceB William the ConquerorC Crazy WilliamD Kaiser Wilhelm

[Answer: B]

2 What was the Hunley?

[Answer: The first submarine to sink an enemy ship.It was built during the Civil War and sank in the har-bor in Charleston, South Carolina.]

3 In one page or less, describe the main events thatled to World War I.

At higher grade levels, students will be asked to demon-strate their ability to reason and infer, such as is representedby the following question:

58 Chapter 2

4 In your opinion, was the Civil War fought over slav-ery? Justify your answer in one page or less.

SummaryQuestions on standardized tests fall into one of two majorcategories: recognition questions (most often representedby multiple-choice questions) that require the test taker torecognize the correct answer among two or more alterna-tives (usually four or five) and recall questions (representedby short-answer and essay questions) that require the testtaker to actively retrieve information from memory.

Recognition questions require a more superficial mas-tery of subject matter, but they can be objectively scored bycomputers, answer key overlays, or optical scanning sheets.Compared with recognition questions, recall questionsrequire the student to demonstrate a deeper mastery of sub-jects, but recall questions can’t be scored by machine.Unlike scoring the answers to recognition questions,scoringthe answers to recall questions is subjective.

The major subject areas of test questions on standard-ized tests include reading, math, spelling, language, and oth-ers such as social studies and science.



C H A P T E R

Decoding YourChild’s Score

When you read the title of this chapter, you probablyhad an urge to quickly flip to another section—but

don’t! Understanding your child’s test scores is much easierthan most people think.

And since interpretations and misinterpretations of yourchild’s scores dictate how the schools will use the testresults, it’s essential for you to read on. In this chapter, you’lllearn about the most important statistical concept involvedin testing—the bell curve.

The Bell Curve: It’s Not asHard as You Think

The bell curve is simply a graph of how often somethingtends to occur. For example, the graph in Figure 3-1 showshow often “heads”occurred when students threw groups of10 pennies 1000 times.

3

61


Figure 3-1 Typical Bell Curve

Notice that the graph looks sort of like a bell—hencethe name bell curve. Also note that most of the “heads” arein the middle of the range, and the farther we move awayfrom the middle, the fewer number of trials there are withthat number of heads.

You will find that we come up with a bell curve whenwe look at many different types of things, such as:

• The number of ice cream cones per day people buy at anamusement park

• The speeds that cars travel down the interstate highwaybetween 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. each day

• The heights and weights of women shopping at the localmall

• The distance between people’s eyes• The number of feet children can kick a soccer ball

In each of these examples, if you graphed the number oftimes each value occurred, you’d see that most of the valueswould be close to the average, and the fewest would fallnear the two extremes.

62 Chapter 3N

umbe

r of

Tim

es E

ach

Occ

urre

d

300

250

200

150

100

50

00 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Number of Heads

—

—

—

—

—

— — — — — — — — — —

One of the basic assumptions behind educational andpsychological testing is that students’ test scores fall along abell curve.To interpret scores on a test, we need to under-stand two concepts related to the bell curve: the mean andpercentile.

The Mean (Average)

The average is important because it gives us a way of com-paring one score with the other scores in a group. If Lindabrings home a test score of 85, for example, we can’t deter-mine whether that is a good score until we know the aver-age. If the average is 500, an 85 would be terrible; but if theaverage is 50, an 85 would be quite good.

Percentile

Even if we know the average, we still need to know some-thing about how often each score occurs.Another importantstatistical term that psychologists use to describe test scoresis the cumulative percent—also known as the percentile.Very simply, the percentile is the percentage of scores equalto or below a certain score.

To illustrate this, let’s go back to our example of Linda,who had a test score of 85. If 78 percent of the scores on thetest that Linda took fell at or below 85, we would say thatthe percentile of Linda’s score percentile is 78—the 78thpercentile. So, if you know the percentile, you can tell howyour child’s score ranks among other scores.

You will see different guidelines for how to interpretscores depending on the test,and some are more useful thanothers.Table 3-1 shows one way to interpret percentiles onany test.

Decoding Your Child’s Score 63

Table 3-1 Interpreting Percentiles

Percentile Range Level

2 and below Deficient3−8 Borderline9−23 Low average24−75 Average76−97 High average98 and above Superior

Many people are surprised to learn how wide the aver-age range is. Most school psychologists have had to dealwith parents who panicked when their child made a scoresomewhere around the 27th percentile. But you can seefrom Table 3-1 that the 27th percentile is actually in the aver-age range.

Congratulations! You now know everything you need toknow for a basic interpretation of test scores. So let’s applywhat we have learned with a real-life test score report.

Interpretation of Test ReportsLet’s look at a sample test report that’s similar to one youmight receive after your child’s testing. In this case,we’ll usesample test score reports from the TerraNova. If your childtakes a different standardized test, the report may lookslightly different, but the TerraNova report contains thebasic type of information you can expect to receive.

Look at Figure 3-2.This bar chart presents of scores forfictitious student Mary Brown. On the left side of the graph,a scale gives the national percentiles for the scores. On theright, bracketed areas give parents a quick, rough interpreta-tion of the scores. In this case, note that almost all of Mary’sscores are within the average range,while math and spellingare above average.

64 Chapter 3

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Number of Heads

— — — — — — — — —

Figure 3-2 (Source: CTB/McGraw-Hill, copyright © 1997. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission.)

65

The kind of information in this graph may be rough, butit does give parents a simple way of comparing their child’sscores. Figure 3-3 interprets Mary Brown’s scores a slightlydifferent way, by showing general level of skill mastery foreach area tested.

In this figure, look near the bottom just above “GeneralInterpretation”to find a key to interpreting the circle next toeach area of testing, indicating that Mary has shown mastery,partial mastery, or nonmastery of each skill area. Note thatthis report breaks down each scale into the subskills tested.For the most part, Mary has mastered the skills tested. But ifyou look in the “Needs” column, you will see that she hasshown only partial mastery of “evaluate and extend mean-ing” under Reading, “writing strategies” under “Language,”“measurement” and “geometry and spatial sense” underMathematics, and “historical and cultural perspectives”under Social Studies.

“Partial mastery” means that she is part of the waytoward mastering those skills but is not yet competent inthem. She tested at a nonmastery level in “identify readingstrategies” under “Reading,” “multimeaning words” under“Vocabulary,” “writing conventions” under “LanguageMechanics,” “percents” under “Mathematics Computation,”and “earth and space science” under “Science.”

The interpretation provided in this figure is somewhatrough. And keep in mind the cautions offered later inChapter 7 about applying results of group standardized testswith individuals. Use the information in this figure as aguide, but don’t make a detailed diagnosis of an individualstudent’s learning problems.

Figure 3-4 is perhaps the most useful report for teachersand parents who know how to interpret the informationthere. Let’s start with the table at the top of the report. Look

66 Chapter 3

Figure 3-3 (Source: CTB/McGraw-Hill, copyright © 1997. All rights reserved. Reproduced with permission.)

67

Figure 3-4 (Source: CTB/McGraw-Hill, copyright © 1997. All rights reserved. Reproduced ith permission.)

68

at the column labeled “National Percentile.” This is exactlythe same thing we referred to above.“National” means thatthe percentile score refers to the percentage of scores at orbelow the score in a national sample.A national percentile(which is frequently abbreviated “NP”) of 45, for example,means that an estimated 45 percent of students from all overthe United States would score at or below this score.

Although not used in this figure, you might sometimescome across the term local percentile (frequently abbreviat-ed “LP”).This term refers to the percentage of students local-ly (such as within the state, school district, or even individu-al school) who scored at or below the score. Use Table 3-1(in the “Percentile” section) to interpret the national per-centile for each scale’s score.

The next column is labeled “NP Range,” which means“national percentile range.”All scores vary. For example, if achild takes the same test more than once, it is likely she willmake different scores on different days.A number of factors,such as whether the child is excited about an upcomingschool vacation,how well the child feels on a given day,hownoisy it is outside the classroom, and so on, can affect thatstudent’s scores. All of us recall information with differentlevels of accuracy from one day to the next. NP range refersto the range in which we would expect the child’s per-centiles to fall a certain amount of the time if the child couldtake the same test more than once.

Now look at the graph to the right of the score table atthe top of the report. Rather than report the student’s scoreas a single point, a large dot represents the actual score withlines extending to the left and to the right indicating the NPrange.This way of graphing a student’s scores gives a muchbetter idea of how precise an individual score is.


There are other scores in the table at the top of thisreport, but you already have all the information you need tointerpret them. Don’t worry about the columns labeled“Scale Score” and “National Stanine.” These refer to morespecialized statistical scores. Once you know how to inter-pret percentiles, you don’t need to worry about scaledscores or stanines.

There is a column we have ignored up to this point,labeled “Grade Equivalent.”The temptation here is to simplyadvise you to ignore that column. But the truth is that yourchild’s teacher, administrators, and counselors will makesuch a fuss about grade equivalents that you need to knowsomething about them. Psychologists believe that gradeequivalents are very misleading.

Technically, a grade equivalent is supposed to refer tothe average grade of all the students who made a certainscore. Mary Brown’s grade equivalent of 8:8 in reading sup-posedly means that Mary is reading at the 8th month of the8th grade level.

The biggest problem with grade equivalents is that theway we determine them varies from test to test.The samescore, for example, may be 8:8 on one test, 12:6 on another,and 13:2 on yet another. One test may calculate grade equiv-alents by some obscure formula.Another test may calculategrade equivalents by determining the average grade place-ment of all the students who made a certain score.

Another big problem with grade equivalents is that theycan give a false sense of where the student is actually func-tioning. On one major test, for example, the average readinglevel for high school seniors in the final month of highschool is 8:0 rather than the expected 12:9. That doesn’tmean that the average high school senior is reading nearlyfive grade levels behind but rather that the way the test pub-

70 Chapter 3

lisher calculates grade equivalents is very misleading at theupper grades.

Regardless of how much others may emphasize gradeequivalents, refer to Table 3-1 and interpret percentiles andignore the grade equivalents. If someone makes a fuss aboutyour child’s grade equivalents, refer that person to the per-centiles.

Now look at the bottom two-thirds of Figure 3-4, wherewe see Mary Brown’s degree of mastery on the different skillareas. The interpretation here is very straightforward, justlike the skills breakdown in Figure 3-3.

Notice the column labeled “OPI.” This refers to theObjective Performance Index.The OPI is an estimate of thepercentage of items the student should be able to answercorrectly for each skill area.An OPI of 23 for a certain skillarea, for example, means that we estimate that the studentwould be able to correctly answer 23 percent of the itemsfor that skill.That gives a rough idea of how proficient thestudent is in that skill.

On the TerraNova, an OPI of 75 or above signifies mas-tery, an OPI between 50 and 74 signifies partial mastery, andan OPI below 50 indicates nonmastery.



C H A P T E R

After the Dust Settles:What You Can Do

So the big day has finally arrived: The newspapers runcharts and graphs showing the standardized test scores

for the schools in your area.Your son comes home with thatcryptic printout that we learned to interpret in Chapter 3.

You know from what you’ve already read in this bookthat group standardized tests aren’t designed to diagnoseindividual students.But that little irrational voice inside yourhead can’t help making a big fuss over the fact that yourson’s reading score is dismal. Or perhaps your son’s teachertold you that your son’s low group aptitude score is thesame thing as an IQ (it isn’t). Of course you react emotion-ally and begin to wonder if maybe there’s a problem youdidn’t suspect.You’re not alone.

Yvonne was a popular class leader who made A’s and B’sin all her subjects. Her teacher could always depend onYvonne, who finished her homework every day without

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73


complaint. On the rare occasions Yvonne needed help withher homework, she caught on quickly. But her parentsscheduled a meeting with the teacher to express anguishover the fact that her standardized test report showed a verylow reading score. Her parents thought perhaps Yvonneneeded a tutorial reading program.

Fortunately, Yvonne’s school district doesn’t automati-cally assign students with low standardized test scores to thetutorial reading program,but lets parents and teachers makedecisions based on the overall picture.When Yvonne’s par-ents and teacher met and reviewed Yvonne’s homework,class work,class test grades, and special projects, it was clearthat she was doing fine. In fact, the only thing about Yvonnethat anyone could fault was her low reading score on themost recent group standardized test.

So instead of putting her in a tutoring program, her par-ents and teacher paid special attention to Yvonne’s progressin reading group and monitored her reading at home overthe next several weeks, and no one saw a problem in herreading.They decided she did not need extra help.

On the other hand, Michael had a history of problems inall subjects. His teachers had always noted that he didn’tlearn new skills well and that his homework and class workwere full of errors. He seemed unhappy and totally lost inclass. His parents struggled to help him understand hishomework, but often he just didn’t get it.

His standardized test scores had always been dismal, andthe latest round of results was no exception. Michael’s par-ents and teacher decided to refer him to the child studyteam at his school to try to determine what they needed todo for Michael.

After a series of unsuccessful interventions, the schoolpsychologist found that Michael had a learning disability in

74 Chapter 4

basic reading skill, reading comprehension,mathematics cal-culation, and mathematics reasoning. He was placed in thedistrict’s handicapped program with an IndividualizedEducation Program and began receiving two periods ofresource classes each day.

The above examples show that test scores have to beevaluated in perspective. Still, in many school districts, yourchild will nevertheless be judged,diagnosed,and classified bystandardized test scores, whether it’s valid to do so or not.

Many schools still use those scores to place studentsunnecessarily in remedial programs or deny entrance intoprestigious programs for the gifted.This is why you shouldunderstand what your child’s test scores mean, how theschool district might use them, and what to do if the scoressupport your suspicion that your child has a learning prob-lem. In this chapter, you’ll learn what to do when the scoresarrive, how to see if your child might have a learning prob-lem, and how to get help if there is a problem.

Is There a Problem?

You’ve got your child’s test scores.You’ve read in Chapter 3how to interpret test results, and you realize that his mathscores are very low.You recall that he seemed healthy whenthe tests had been given,so the low scores probably can’t beblamed on illness.The first thing you need to do is sit downwith your spouse and discuss the situation.

Think back to the times you both helped your child withschoolwork. Did he seem to struggle with certain concepts?Did he come home from school upset because he justcouldn’t understand the new information the teacher pre-sented? Perhaps he referred to himself in derogatory terms,such as “dummy.”

After the Dust Settles:What You Can Do 75

Look back over past schoolwork.Are there any patternsthat hint of a possible learning problem? Maybe your childdoes well with simple math problems, but completely fallsapart when it comes to regrouping (what you think of as“carrying”or “borrowing”). If it’s spelling that’s the problem,maybe your child consistently misspells words that havemore than two syllables, or often mispronounces words.

Next, check with your child. Does he think there’s aproblem? Children can be astute observers of their ownbehavior and often have great insight into their own prob-lems.Maybe your child thinks everything is all right—or thatmost things are okay, but he has trouble reading: Perhaps hecomplains that he can identify each word, but has problemsfollowing along with and understanding what the passagessay. Maybe he can’t see the board or can’t hear the teacher,and you suspect a vision or a hearing problem. It could bethat a visit to the ophthalmologist or audiologist will make aworld of difference. If so, terrific. But if it’s not as easilysolved as that, you may need to look farther.

Your Child’s TeacherYour child’s teacher is a great resource and can be your bestfriend when it comes to identifying your child’s learningproblems and to developing strategies for dealing withthose problems.Teachers can often reassure parents that thesituation isn’t as bleak as it may seem.

You may be the expert on your child, but your child’steacher has probably seen hundreds of students in hercareer. Many teachers have a keen eye for who’s having aproblem and who isn’t.The teacher can review your child’sperformance, and can show you how he’s doing comparedwith the other students. Your child’s portfolio can be very

76 Chapter 4

valuable in showing how your child is actually performing inschool every day, regardless of what the test scores say.

The teacher can also shed light on something you prob-ably don’t get to see every day—how well your child worksin class. She can tell you whether your child fidgets andsquirms and whether he has friends in the class. She cancomment on whether he seems to enjoy school or if he isfrustrated and withdrawn. Sometimes the teacher is the firstone to note a developing emotional problem.

Your child’s teacher can also tell you what will happento your child as a result of any unusual test scores. As youtalk with the teacher, keep in mind that teachers typicallyhave no input in how the school district will use the testscores—they are just the messengers.

Does your school district automatically place low-scor-ing students into remedial programs? If so, can you appeal?Is there a risk that your child might need to repeat a gradebecause of low standardized test scores? In some school dis-tricts, your child’s low scores may lead to failing a grade orbeing denied a diploma, regardless of report card grades andteachers’ judgments about how well he’s doing in school.

Guidance CounselorYour next step in discovering if your child has learning prob-lems is to go to your child’s guidance counselor. Most guid-ance counselors have been classroom teachers and not onlyhave the perspective of a veteran teacher but are usuallytrained in test interpretation and student services.Althougha counselor won’t usually have firsthand knowledge of yourchild’s performance in the classroom, she’ll be able to lookat your child’s record and can advise you about the possibil-ity of a learning problem.The guidance counselor will have


available the scores of the other students in your child’sclass and grade and can give you a quick judgment of justwhere your child’s scores fit in with the others.

Child Study TeamLet’s suppose that you’ve been to the teacher and to theguidance counselor and you’re still not happy. Maybe yousee a problem where they don’t, or perhaps you disagreeabout how to address your child’s difficulties. Or perhapsyou, the teacher, and the guidance counselor have triedeverything—and your child is still struggling.

You may want to consider utilizing your school’s childstudy team, whose function is to identify children whoneed some sort of special help, to decide what help to offer,and to refer children for more testing when needed. Theteams may go by other names in your child’s school, such asstudent assistance team or student intervention team, butthey all function the same way: They review informationfrom parents, school records, previous and current teachers,and the child.The group, which may also include both par-ents and teachers,meet and discuss the child’s problems andpotential strategies to help the child.They may even involvethe student in strategy sessions to come up with appropri-ate ways to overcome the problems.

There are several ways that you can involve a child studyteam. Usually, your child’s teacher would notify the teamcoordinator—probably a guidance counselor, special educa-tion teacher, or assistant principal. Sometimes counselors oradministrators ask the team to consider a child’s problems.But you can refer your child, too. Ask your child’s teacherwhat specific steps you need to take at your school to havethe team help with your child. If the teacher doesn’t know,

78 Chapter 4

ask the guidance counselor. Check out the student hand-book for information on accessing the child study team.

Working with a child study team is a great way for youto get involved with your child’s education in a very directand meaningful way. It may be inconvenient to leave workto attend the strategy meetings,but go to every meeting youcan. Do your homework: Come in with suggestions, materi-als, notes about sessions between you and your child, andany other information you think might help.You’ll find thatthe child study team will welcome your involvement withopen arms.

The child study team will assign various team members,sometimes including you and your spouse, with tasks tohelp your child. For example, the team might ask that youdrill your child for 20 minutes a day on spelling words orthat you review basic addition and subtraction for 30 min-utes a day using flash cards. Perhaps the team might ask youto read over your child’s writing assignments to check forspelling and punctuation errors. If the team asks you to takepart of the responsibility for helping your child, rejoice! Itobviously has faith in your ability to help.The team membersaren’t pushing their responsibilities off on you; they’re giv-ing you the chance to be involved in your child’s education.

Once everyone has been working on the strategy tohelp your child for a period of time, the child study team willmeet again to review the results.Usually your child will havemade progress. If not, team members will discuss new ideas.Sometimes finding out what doesn’t work is an importantfirst step to success.

This process could go on for some time as the team fine-tunes a specific program for your child, and many times it issuccessful. Sometimes, however, the team members realize


they’ve reached a dead end. If the child is still struggling, theteam may decide to call for a special education evaluation.

The focus of the special education evaluation is to deter-mine whether your child qualifies for any of the 13 handi-caps defined in the federal law governing special education,called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).These handicaps include:

• Autism• Deaf-blindness• Deafness• Hearing problems• Mental retardation• Multiple disabilities• Orthopedic problems• Other health problems such as having strength or alert-

ness difficulties affecting school performance• Serious emotional disturbance• Specific learning disability• Speech or language problems• Traumatic brain injury• Eye problems, including blindness

By the time the child study team begins a special educationevaluation, team members will have a tremendous amountof information about your child far beyond standardized testscores. They will have samples of his daily work, detailsabout what strategies did and didn’t work, and healthscreenings to rule out hearing or eye problems. They willhave a thorough description of the types of problems yourchild has every day.

But they may need the input of other professionals.Depending on the specific nature of your child’s problems,

80 Chapter 4

various professionals may help with this special educationevaluation, such as:

• Speech and language therapist• School psychologist• Audiologist• Hearing education teacher• Special education teacher• Physician

The evaluation that will determine whether your child willqualify for consideration for special education placementwill probably involve assessments by several of these spe-cialists.At the very least, the school psychologist, the refer-ring teacher, and a speech-language pathologist usually willcomplete the needed evaluations.

Note that the evaluation by itself simply determineswhether the child study team may consider your child forplacement in special education, since the team may onlyconsider children for special education placement if theymeet certain requirements.

Special Education PlacementSuppose the child study team now has sufficient informa-tion to recommend assembling a placement team to consid-er placing your child in the district’s handicapped program.A complete discussion of the placement options and all ofthe ins and outs of special education placement is beyondthe scope of this book. But it’s important to understand thatif your child enters special education, the school will pro-vide an Individualized Education Program (IEP), which gov-erns all aspects of your child’s educational program.


If There’s a Learning ProblemIf your child does appear to have a significant learning prob-lem, the teacher can help you learn what to do about it, sug-gesting reading books, workbooks, and other material thatwill be similar to those your child sees in class. For example,many textbooks have companion workbooks that schooldistricts don’t order because of the cost. So if your child ishaving a problem in, say, math, there may be a companionworkbook to his math book you can order.

The teacher also can give you a schedule of upcomingcurriculum topics so that you can plan your work at homearound that schedule.Teachers can send home supplemen-tal materials and provide advice about educational softwarethat parallels what your child is learning in the classroom.

Sometimes the teacher just doesn’t know whether thereis a problem. Perhaps she’s a substitute who only recentlytook over the class and who hasn’t known your child longenough to be able to give you any meaningful information.Or maybe your child has a new teacher who doesn’t havethe experience to be able to spot children with problems.Sometimes,you and the teacher just don’t get along—or per-haps you have seen the teacher and you’re just not satisfiedwith her response.

Get a TutorIf your child doesn’t qualify for special education, he mayqualify for remedial services. For example, if your child hasbeen struggling with reading, he may qualify for placementin a tutorial reading program which he attends one hourevery day. Most schools offer such programs, and you mayfind that a few months or more in this program will bring

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your child’s reading up to an appropriate level, and he canstop attending the classes.

If your child is still struggling in school but doesn’t qual-ify for special education or for the school’s remedial pro-gram, you may have to go outside the school to obtain atutor. Sometimes,you can find private tutors whose rates arereasonable.Talk to your friends and get recommendations,orcall your child’s school and ask for recommendations.Checkout the community bulletin board at your local grocerystore for tutor services, or visit your local library.There aremany retired teachers who tutor a few students for extraincome.These individuals bring many years of experience tohelp your child and can sometimes work wonders. Most vet-eran teachers have enough experience that they can adviseyou if the problem is too serious for them to handle.

College students (especially those studying to be teach-ers) are another good tutoring choice. Call your local col-lege’s teacher education program and ask for recommenda-tions. Some colleges maintain registers of students who arelooking for jobs as tutors.One of the great advantages of col-lege students is their enthusiasm. Since they are in training,they probably are familiar with the most modern materialsand texts. Regularly employed teachers also work as tutorsoutside of school hours.

If you can’t afford a private tutor, you might check atyour church or the local community center. Many have vol-unteers who devote one or more afternoons a week to tutor-ing. Organizations such as the YMCA,YWCA, and Boys andGirls Clubs have free or low-cost after-school tutorial pro-grams as well.

Alternatively, you may want to consider commercialtutorial services such as the Sylvan Learning Centers (1-888-


EDUCATE or www.educate.com), which provide diagnosticand tutorial services after school, during summers, and onthe weekends. Such services offer a range of possible pro-grams that include tutoring in specific areas or general studyskills, listening, and note taking. Don’t forget to consult theYellow Pages under “Educational Consultants,”“EducationalServices,” or “Tutorial Services.”

Another recent development, borrowed from similarprograms in Japan and Korea, is the Saturday school.Theseschools provide after-school and weekend educational ser-vices meant to reinforce children’s learning and to treat anyspecific problems. While not widely available, they arebecoming more common in larger metropolitan areas.

AdvocacyYou’ve learned what to do if low standardized test scorespoint to a real learning problem your child may have. Butwhat if you, your child, and your child’s teacher believe thatdespite low scores, your child is doing well in school. If yourschool district enforces policies that penalize your child insome way for those low test scores, it may be time for somegood old-fashioned advocacy.

Perhaps your child’s school district requires that stu-dents with low test scores automatically repeat grades or aredenied diplomas.That is the very challenge that parents inone North Carolina school district and another in Texasfaced when their children were told they must repeat theirgrades, even though their report card grades had beenstrong and their teachers had judged them to have learnedappropriately. In these cases, the policies in place did notgive the parents any input into whether their childrenwould repeat their grades or fail to graduate, and the teach-

84 Chapter 4

ers and principals were powerless to intervene, even whenthey considered the consequences to be unreasonable.

You will find that it is easier to dispute local policies thatare unique to your child’s school than to fight a policy thathas been mandated by your school district.And you’ll havebetter luck fighting policies mandated by your state depart-ment of public instruction than you will fighting nationalpolicies.

Local Policies

If there is a local policy at your child’s school or school dis-trict that inappropriately uses group standardized testscores,your first step will be to determine who at the schoolis responsible for the testing program.This person is usuallyan assistant principal or guidance counselor.

Talk to that person and find out just how much roomthere is for change. For example, if the policy requires yourchild to repeat her grade on the basis of her standardizedtest scores but she’s doing well in school otherwise, is therea way to either retest her or make an individual exception?

If not, you’ll have to go to the principal, and from thereto the district’s assistant superintendent for instruction, andfrom there to the superintendent and the school board.

If you get as far as an appeal before the school board,you should get some help—preferably backup by other par-ents who have similar concerns. If you’re active in theschool’s parent-teacher organization, you probably knowother parents who have similar concerns. If not, ask to speakat the next meeting so that you can express your concernsand ask other parents to join with you.

Since most school board members are elected, having alarge group of parents raise concerns—especially if they


express them responsibly—can go a long way toward get-ting the board members to take a second look at the testingpolicies.

State Policies

Most often,you are likely to find that policies regarding stan-dardized testing are set up at the state level through either astate board of education or legislation. For example, somestates have begun to adopt rules about promotion and grad-uation based on standardized test scores.

Call your local school district and ask who representsyour area of the state on the state board of education.Contact that person and ask for an appointment to discussyour concerns.The person may tell you that the state boardof education has no control over the policy but that it’s amatter of state law. If that’s the case,you’ll have a much hard-er battle ahead of you.

Find out who your representative is in the state legisla-ture and arrange a meeting to discuss your concerns, espe-cially if you can take a delegation of parents with similarconcerns. Many politicians will welcome the opportunity tomeet with concerned voters, especially if the matter is onethat they can support.You may not get what you want, butyou will at least make the legislator familiar with you and thegroup you represent.

At this point, if it still doesn’t seem that you’re going tobe able to change anything, contact the National Center forFair & Open Testing.The Center’s Web site (www.fairtest.org)provides a listing of who in your state is coordinating effortsto reform the use of test scores.That person can tell you whatresources are available, what other groups are workingtoward reform, and what legislation or school board policies

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are under consideration. The Web site also offers links to anarray of resources, such as reports, position papers, updateson what is happening in the field of standardized testing,andbooks that can help you understand the responsible use ofstandardized tests.

Or contact the local branch of the NAACP. That organi-zation has become particularly sensitive to the misuse ofstandardized test scores, especially since students who aremembers of minority ethnic groups frequently bear thebrunt of this misuse.Their representatives may have alreadybegun negotiating with the state board of education or thestate legislature, and you will be able to add your voice tothose of other concerned citizens to fight for change.

SummaryEven if you rationally understand that you should not over-react to your child’s group standardized test scores, it ishuman nature to allow low scores to bother you and makeyou doubt whether your child is doing well in school. Sincechildren suffer consequences for low test scores in manyschools throughout the country, it’s important for you toknow what your child’s scores are and how the schools willuse them. If the test scores imply that there is a problem inone or more of your child’s academic areas, find outwhether there is actually a problem. If you’re still in doubt,have your child referred to the child study team at herschool.

If you encounter unreasonable policies,you may need tochange them.You may have to enlist the help of other con-cerned parents and join with an advocacy group to worktoward responsible use of standardized tests.



C H A P T E R

If You’re aHomeschooler

There was a time in the not-too-distant past when parentswho wanted to homeschool their children had to

endure endless obstacles. Some faced prosecution for violat-ing school attendance laws. Others faced the scorn and con-tempt of their neighbors for having the audacity to thinkthey could educate their children better than the schoolscould.

Today homeschooling is legal in all 50 states. Whilerequirements for the parents’qualifications vary,many statesrequire parents to at least be high school graduates. Manyparents find that the motives that led them to considerhomeschooling in the first place guide their attitudestoward having their children take state-mandated standard-ized tests. Some are suspicious toward the assessments anddisapprove of the influence standardized tests have come toexert over the public school curriculum.

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As one parent put it,“I don’t trust those tests.The pro-gram my children get at home is so rich that some two-hourtest can’t tell me whether my children are learning. Itdoesn’t test that we spent last Tuesday at the zoo helping thezookeepers wash the giant turtle. It doesn’t test whether mydaughter can name every painting in the local university artmuseum.”

On the other hand, some homeschooling parents wanttheir children to have some sort of regular assessment toensure that they are keeping pace with their peers in basicskill areas. Some of these parents are perfectly willing tohave their children go to the local school to take the tests.Others, those who withdrew their children from publicschool because of safety fears, don’t want their children toreturn to the public school for the tests and may arrange analternative through homeschooling associations.

State RequirementsStandardized testing requirements for homeschoolers varytremendously from state to state.Table 5-1 presents testingrequirements for each state.

Table 5-1 Standardized Testing Requirements forHomeschoolers*

StandardizedTests

State Required Comment

Alabama No

Alaska Yes Grades 4, 6, and 8 [Note 1]

Arizona No

Arkansas Yes [Note 2]

California No

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StandardizedTests


Colorado Yes Grades 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11

Connecticut No Portfolio review instead

Delaware [Note 3]

District of Columbia No

Florida [Note 4]

Georgia Yes

Hawaii Yes Grades 3, 6, 8, and 10

Idaho No

Illinois No

Indiana No

Iowa [Note 5]

Kansas No

Kentucky No

Louisiana [Note 6]

Maine [Note 7]

Maryland No Parents’ option

Massachusetts [Note 8]

Michigan No

Minnesota Yes

Mississippi No

Missouri No

Montana No

Nebraska [Note 9]

Nevada Yes Grades 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8

If You’re a Homeschooler 91

StandardizedTests


New Hampshire [Note 10]

New Jersey No

New Mexico Yes

New York Yes Test from approved list

North Carolina Yes Must test annually

North Dakota Yes

Ohio [Note 11]

Oklahoma No

Oregon Yes Test from approved list

Pennsylvania Yes Grades 3, 5, and 8

Rhode Island [Note 12]

South Carolina Yes

South Dakota Yes [Note 13]

Tennessee Yes Grades 2, 5, 7, and 9

Texas No

Utah No

Vermont [Note 14]

Virginia Yes

Washington [Note 15]

West Virginia Yes

Wisconsin No

Wyoming No

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Notes

1. Alaska requires students to take standardized tests only if they areenrolled in a full-time, approved correspondence course or a formalprogram that meets requirements for private or religious schools.

2. Children aged 7 and older are required to take a standardized testfrom the state’s approved list; 14-year-olds must take Arkansas’s minimum competency test and provide documentation that theyare receiving remediation if they are below standard.

3. The law gives the state education agency the authority to requirestandardized testing, but the state education agency has not done so.

4. Florida requires evaluation consisting of one or more of the follow-ing: standardized testing, portfolio assessment, evaluation by atrained outside party, or any other method approved by the stateeducation agency.

5. Iowa requires either standardized testing, portfolio review, or otherapproved assessment method.

6. Louisiana requires that homeschooled students take standardizedtests or be evaluated by a certified teacher.

7. Maine requires that homeschooled students take standardized testsgiven by a certified teacher, a local education agency advisorypanel, or a homeschool panel that includes a certified teacher.

8. Massachusetts lets local school districts decide whether to requirestandardized testing of homeschoolers.

9. Nebraska law gives the state board of education the discretion torequire standardized testing, but the board currently doesn’t requireit.

10. Students in New Hampshire must take standardized tests, be evalu-ated by a certified teacher, or be evaluated using some otherapproved method.

11. Ohio requires that homeschooled students take standardized tests,be evaluated by a certified teacher, or be evaluated by anotherapproved method.

12. Rhode Island doesn’t require statewide standardized testing ofhomeschooled students, but gives local school districts the authori-ty to require it.

13. In South Dakota, parents may choose to have their homeschooledchild evaluated using any nationally standardized test.


14. Homeschooled students in Vermont must take standardized tests orbe evaluated by another approved assessment option.

15. Students in Washington must take annual standardized tests or anassessment by a certified person working in education.

*Note: These data were accurate when this book went to press.However, homeschooling is a controversial topic in many parts of thecountry, and the requirements for your area may have changed. Youmust contact the director of instruction for your local school districtto determine the specific requirements you are required to follow.

Note that 28 states either require outright that home-schoolers take state-mandated standardized tests or requirethat parents choose among several alternatives includingstandardized tests. The most common alternatives to stan-dardized testing include evaluation by a certified teacher,portfolio assessment, or substitution of another testapproved by the state. Many homeschooling associationswork closely with state departments of public instruction tohelp parents navigate their way through state-mandatedstandardized testing requirements.

If Your State Requires Standardized TestsIf you live in one of the states that requires standardized test-ing of homeschoolers or list it as one of several options, youare very likely to interact with school officials in somecapacity.

You probably won’t have much contact with state edu-cation officials unless you have a grievance against the localschool district or you need information or resources thatlocal educators don’t have. Most states delegate the task ofmonitoring homeschoolers to local school districts.

But it’s a good idea to know the names of key people inyour state department of public instruction that oversee

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homeschooling and the state’s testing program.These indi-viduals can be very helpful, especially if you need informa-tion about pending laws, regulations, and interpretations ofrequirements.Your state’s department of public instructionshould have a central telephone number.When you call, askfor the department dealing with homeschooling or account-ability, and be prepared with specific questions.

Since your school district must keep records of who isbeing homeschooled, and must enforce any testing provi-sions, you will probably be dealing more often with localeducation officials. In fact, usually you must maintain con-tact with someone (generally an administrator in the dis-trict’s instruction division) at the local school district to lethim or her know that you still live in the district and thatyou are homeschooling.The person who answers the tele-phone at the local school district office should be able torefer you to the appropriate person.

It’s very important that you establish a good rapportwith at least one key person in the school district. Considerthat person as your liaison, someone who can answer yourquestions and help solve problems—or who can refer you tosomeone who can.The goal is to find someone in the localschool district who feels comfortable contacting you andwith whom you feel comfortable.Approach this person withthe attitude that school personnel aren’t the enemy—theyare there to help you.You’ll find that most school staffers areeager to help you have a good relationship with the schooldistrict even though your child no longer attends.

If you live in a state that requires that your home-schooled child take standardized tests, your liaison can tellyou what tests your child will be required to take and pro-vide you with the support materials that parents of children


who attend the public schools would receive.Your contactperson can also help you arrange when and where yourchild will take the tests.

Many parents simply have their child take the tests withan age-appropriate class and then pick up their child whenthe tests are finished. If you don’t want your child to take thetests with a regular class, your liaison can probably help youarrange for your child to take the tests in a conference room,or to take the tests in a small group during a makeup ses-sion.

If you have a problem with the local school districtabout standardized testing, your liaison can help you learnestablished procedures for handling grievances. Respectthose procedures.The school district administration will cer-tainly respond better to any concerns or grievances youhave if you have gone through proper channels. Resist theurge to bypass lower-level administrators and to go directlyto the superintendent or school board. It may be time-con-suming and frustrating to follow established procedures,butyou will get better results if you work your way up the chainof command.

Before you begin a grievance process, make sure youknow the laws and regulations on homeschooling. Yourschool district liaison or your homeschooling associationshould have these available. Many of the disagreements thathomeschooling parents have with school districts concernregulations over which the school districts have no control.If you believe you’re being treated unfairly or that the schooldistrict is requiring your child to take more tests than thelaws require, be sure you have your facts straight. Don’tmake threats that you can’t enforce, and don’t make per-sonal attacks against school personnel: Stick to the regula-tions.

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If the disagreement you have is with laws over whichthe school district has no control, now may be the time toinvolve other parents who homeschool their children.Talkto parents in your own and other homeschooling associa-tions and determine what advocacy efforts are already underway. Frequently, letter-writing campaigns, public forums, andother avenues for advocating for your position are availableto you. If they are not, start them.

If You Want Testing

Even many parents who mistrust group standardized testingwant some sort of individual evaluation of how their home-schooled children are doing, just to verify that they are keep-ing up with their public school peers. These parents haveseveral options, including commercial educational services,certified teachers, licensed school psychologists, and theirhomeschooling association.

Commercial Educational Services

Several forms of commercial educational services offer stan-dardized testing.The Sylvan Learning Centers and other sim-ilar tutorial services offer a range of tests from basic stan-dardized tests to more comprehensive diagnostic tests.Manysuch centers work with teachers trained to administer indi-vidual achievement tests and school psychologists who canprovide a full range of intelligence, achievement, and per-sonality tests.

In addition, a growing number of educational consultantservices run by educators with advanced degrees cater toboth families and school districts.Many of these services canprovide educational testing and often work with home-


schooling associations to administer the associations’ testingprograms.

Private schools often offer testing services, even for chil-dren who don’t attend the school. Check with larger privateschools near your home and ask if they offer such services.If they don’t, ask who provides theirs.

Teachers

Many teachers have specialized training in achievement test-ing. Reading specialists, for example, are typically trained toadminister individual diagnostic reading tests, just as teach-ers who teach remedial math are often trained to give indi-vidual diagnostic math tests. Special education teachersmust test their students regularly and are usually familiarwith the full range of individual diagnostic achievementtests. Call your local teacher’s college and ask for recom-mendations.Personnel at your local public school may knowof teachers who give these tests as well.

School Psychologists

School psychologists are trained in the full range of educa-tional and psychological testing. These tests are especiallyhelpful if you suspect that your child has some sort of learn-ing problem. In fact, if you suspect that your child has a dis-ability, you can request that the school district in which youlive provide a school psychological evaluation at no cost toyou.

But be prepared to wait. Even though federal lawrequires school districts to complete such evaluations with-in 45 days after a request, most school psychologists who

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work for the public schools have such large caseloads that itcould be months before they can get around to testing yourchild.They get especially backed up in the last quarter of theschool year, so try to make your testing request early in theschool year.

The school psychologist can identify a full range oflearning disorders and can provide extensive recommenda-tions for treatment. Even if your child doesn’t have a learn-ing disorder, the school psychological evaluation can identi-fy his specific learning style to help you teach him. Forexample, the evaluation might reveal that your child learnsbetter when he can see and feel rather than just see alone.In that case, you would want to include instructional activi-ties that allow him to build models or provide some othertype of hands-on activities.

Be prepared to do some searching for a licensed schoolpsychologist in private practice. In many parts of the coun-try, they are in short supply. Look in the telephone bookunder “Psychologists”and note which ones list a specialty inschool psychology. Check with the state psychology licens-ing board for names of licensed school psychologists in yourarea. Remember—not all psychologists are school psycholo-gists.Make sure they are trained in that specialty.Check withprivate schools in your area to see if they have consultantrelationships with school psychologists.

Your Homeschooling Association

Many homeschooling associations (especially national asso-ciations) offer achievement testing services.But be careful—some of the tests they use might be no more valid for diag-nosing individual students’ learning than are the group stan-


dardized tests that we discuss in the remainder of this book.Be especially wary of brief tests that have a small number ofitems. Such tests can often provide misleading results.

Ask to speak with a representative of the associationwho can provide you with additional information on thetests.Ask for brochures.When in doubt, find out what teststhe association offers and make an appointment with aschool psychologist or educational consultant to discusswhether the tests are appropriate for individual diagnosis.

SummaryTwenty-eight states either require that students who arehomeschooled take standardized tests or list standardizedtests as one of several testing alternatives. If you live in astate that requires such testing, it’s important that you estab-lish a good working relationship with someone at the localschool district. Even if your state doesn’t require standard-ized testing, you may want to have your child tested just tomake sure she is keeping up with other children. You canarrange such testing through commercial educational ser-vices, teachers, school psychologists,or your homeschoolingassociation.

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C H A P T E R

If Your Child HasSpecial Needs

Eastern Elementary and Western Elementary are giving thesame achievement test to their third graders. The stan-

dard directions require that students take the tests in 45-minute sessions over three consecutive school days.The fac-ulty at Eastern follow the standard instructions exactly. Butto save time,Western staffers decide to give the entire test inone sitting, lasting slightly more than two hours. Eastern fol-lows instructions to prohibit calculators, but the faculty atWestern give calculators to students.

Is it fair to compare the results for the two schools? Ofcourse not. We know what the Eastern students’ scoresmean because the faculty gave the test in the way the testpublisher required—the same way the test was given to thestandardization group. But we don’t know how to interpretthe scores of the Western students because the faculty atthat school didn’t follow the instructions.

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Changing the way we give tests, for whatever reason,weakens the ability to interpret the scores. For this reason,don’t be surprised when school authorities aren’t eager tomake the accommodations you ask for your child, no matterhow much you want them made or how fair you think it isto make them. In fact, the school is very likely to resist suchchanges—and it should, unless you can make a very strongcase.

In this chapter, we’ll discuss the types of accommoda-tions in group standardized tests that may be necessary aswell as the types of students for whom they will be appro-priate.

Informal AccommodationsInformal accommodations are reasonable changes teachersmake every day in class. For example, they might separatestudents who misbehave, or close the door to a noisy hall.

Ms. Rollins notes that Timmy and Tabitha spend toomuch time in class talking, so she decides to separate themduring standardized testing.

Mr. Barnes notes that Ben has problems paying attentionand tends to stare out the window.When the class takes theMetropolitan Achievement Test, he lowers the shades in theroom so that Ben can’t look out—and may even move himso he can’t hear what’s going on outside the building.

Tim is so disruptive in class that his teacher is convincedhe’ll pose serious disruptions during testing, so she finds anadditional proctor for the group to attend mainly to Tim. IfTim’s actions interfere with testing for other students evenwith an extra proctor, it may be necessary to move him tosmall-group testing.

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These accommodations don’t require any sort of formalagreements, and teachers usually aren’t obligated to get spe-cial permission to make them.These accommodations cer-tainly don’t detract from test interpretation. In fact, thesechanges can make the tests more accurate because theyremove factors that artificially detract from the validity ofthe test scores. You might not even be aware that yourchild’s teacher has made these types of accommodations intesting.

But what if parents or teachers propose more extremeaccommodations? At one time, schools responded to theserequests by simply excluding students whose parents orteachers asked for special changes. In fact, exclusion fromtesting continues to be a major accommodation that parentsand teachers request for students. But because many schooldistricts abused the power to exclude students from testingby using that power as a way to raise district test scores, it’sgetting harder for schools to exclude all but the most severe-ly handicapped students from testing.

Formal AccommodationsThe school may not be so eager to comply when parents orteachers want accommodations that seriously differ fromstandard directions. For example:

• Charles and Karen Williams ask that their son Michael beallowed to use a calculator on all math sections of stan-dardized tests, even though the test instructions specifi-cally forbid the use of calculators.

• Kelli Jones’s teacher asks that Kelli be able to have all testquestions read to her although test instructions clearlyrequire that students read the questions themselves.

If Your Child Has Special Needs 103

• Mr. Steele asks that his son be allowed to dictate hisanswers to all test questions to the teacher even thoughthe test’s instructions require students to write out theiranswers.

• Jason’s mother asks to be allowed to be present to keepJason focused on test questions.

• Ms. Carlisle asks that her son Kevin be able to take thetests in four 22-minute, 30-second periods rather than inthe prescribed two 45-minute sessions.

Each of these requests drastically departs from standarddirections for how we administer tests.When we make suchchanges, we don’t always know how to interpret students’test scores. Can we interpret math scores the same for twostudents when one was allowed to use a calculator and theother was not? Can we compare the scores of two other stu-dents when an aide read the comprehension passages toone, but the other had to read the passages herself?

Teachers and education administrators can only makesuch changes with two types of students: those servedunder the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and those served underthe Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

Rehabilitation ActPublic Law 93-112 (also known as the Rehabilitation Act of1973) is the law that forces all institutions that get federalmoney to make their buildings accessible to people with dis-abilities. It requires ramps, wheelchair-accessible toilets, andmodified water fountains. It requires tall buildings to haveelevators and Braille markings, and it requires public busesto have wheelchair lifts.

Under the act, a disability is any condition that poses sig-nificant limitations to a person’s ability to get an education,

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work, use public transportation, and so on. Disabilitiesinclude not only physical disabilities but mental disabilitiesas well. Disabilities covered under the Rehabilitation Actinclude:

• A broken arm or leg• Pregnancy• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)• Depression• Diabetes• A seizure disorder• Tourette’s syndrome• Narcolepsy• Any physical condition that requires someone to use

crutches or a wheelchair• Bladder disorder requiring clean intermittent catheteriza-

tion

If a disability interferes with a student’s access to testing,the student may qualify for accommodations.And note thata student’s disability doesn’t have to be permanent to quali-fy for protection under the Rehabilitation Act. Pregnancyand broken arms, for example,are temporary conditions thatlimit students’ ability to function for a period of time buteventually change. Once these conditions end and the per-son no longer needs accommodations, the person is nolonger covered under the act.

If you think your child needs special accommodationsfor testing and qualifies under the Rehabilitation Act, con-tact your school’s Child Study Team (see Chapter 4).Teammembers will gather information about your child’s prob-lem and create an Individualized Accommodation Plan (seeFigure 6-1).


Figure 6-1 An Example of an Individual Accommodation Plan

Springfield Unified School DistrictSection 504 Individual Accommodation Plan (IAP)

Name: John Smith DOB: 11/23/1991 Grade: 5School: Springfield Intermediate School Meeting Date: 1/5/2001

1. Is the student disabled as defined by Section 504 of theRehabilitation Act of 1973? Yes

2. If yes, describe the nature of the concern/disability: Attentiondeficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

3. Describe the basis for the determination of the disability:Psychological report by Dr. Ross Harris, diagnosis ADHD, primarilyinattentive type; medical report by Dr. Stella Legarda, pediatric neurol-ogist, same diagnosis.

4. Does the disability substantially limit a major life activity? Yes.

5. If yes, describe how the disability affects a major life activity:John is unable to maintain attention and concentration for extendedperiods. He is particularly distractible and disruptive in group situa-tions.

6. Describe services/accommodations that are necessary toensure commensurate opportunity for meeting educationalneeds: (1) John will require a dose of 10 mg of Ritalin at 7 a.m. eachmorning prior to coming to school, followed by 10 mg of Ritalinadministered by the school nurse at 11:30 a.m. each day, (2) preferen-tial seating in close proximity to the teacher’s desk, (3) daily behaviorreport card sent home to parents, (4) standardized testing in a sepa-rate room under individual supervision of teacher or aide.

As part of the plan, the team members must determinewhether the accommodations relate to testing, and if so,how. For example, if your left-handed child broke her lefthand, team members might have her try to complete a prac-tice test using her right hand to fill in the answers on theanswer sheet. If she can’t do this, school personnel would

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have to figure out how to help her answer the questions ina way that won’t differ from standard instructions any morethan is necessary. Perhaps your child could take a test in aseparate room, calling out answers to an aide, or maybe shecould answer the multiple-choice questions on a computer.

Here are some other examples of the types of accom-modations that students might receive:

• Rosanne has very poor eyesight but does well in schoolwith special magnifying glasses and large-print materials.She is able to use a large-print version of the standardizedtest administered in her school.

• Lucas has ADHD. Even though he is taking large doses ofmedication to help his attention, his teachers must oftenseparate him from other students because they distracteach other. He is allowed to take the standardized test ina separate room with an aide administering the tests tohim and making sure that he remains focused on the test.

• Amanda takes standardized tests that call for uninterrupt-ed 45-minute sessions. Because Amanda has irritablebowel syndrome, she is allowed to take her standardizedtests in a separate room with an adjoining toilet, whichshe can use whenever necessary during the test. Whenshe goes to the toilet, the aide stops timing. Even thoughshe receives 45 minutes of testing, the actual session maybe much longer due to her trips to the toilet.

If Your Request Is Turned DownFirst, remember that school personnel must make every rea-sonable effort to ensure that all students who take groupstandardized tests take them under conditions that conformto standard instructions. If the school resists your request, the


school is probably not trying to give you a hard time. It’s upto you to show why the accommodations are appropriate.

First, make sure that the accommodations you requestfor your child are reasonable. People who work in theschools have had parents come to them requesting all sortsof accommodations, so be prepared for some skepticism onthe part of the school. Many parents think they have a rightto anything they ask for once their child is identified as eli-gible for accommodations under the Rehabilitation Act.

Here are some general guidelines to help you decidewhether the accommodations you ask for are both reason-able and appropriate:

• Have an identified disability. The accommodationsshould relate to an identified disability. For example, par-ents may be convinced that their child has ADHD, but nodoctor will agree.

• Be logical. The accommodations must logically followfrom the disability. If your child has a documented prob-lem with frequent urination, he should be allowed to goto the bathroom during testing—but not to have all ques-tions read to him. The fact that your child’s vision is sopoor that she needs powerful glasses and a magnifyingglass doesn’t mean she must be allowed to use a calcula-tor on the math sections of the test.

• Make timely requests. Make sure you request accommo-dations as soon as possible. If at the last moment youdemand major accommodations, especially if you havenot asked for accommodations in your child’s dailyinstruction, the school may suspect that the accommoda-tions may be unnecessary.

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If your child has a lifelong disability, make sure you con-tact the school before she begins school. If your son has aproblem such as a broken leg, or you suddenly learn thathe has a seizure disorder,bring the matter to the attentionof the school as soon as you learn about the problem.

But let’s suppose that you have gone through all of theabove steps and the school refuses to make the accommo-dations you request. Yet your child has a documented dis-ability that significantly limits his ability to engage in one ormore major life activities, and interferes with his ability totake tests.You’ve furnished all the necessary documentationfor the problem, and you’ve asked for accommodations thatyou believe are totally reasonable and appropriate.

Here’s what to do next.

Step 1. Be persuasive, not combative. It’s amazing howmany parents hire attorneys or enlist the support of advoca-cy groups without ever expressing their disagreement toschool personnel. Often administrators have no idea thatparents are unhappy with a Child Study Team decision untilthe school receives a letter from the parents’ attorney.

Make sure to attend every meeting at school about yourchild. Don’t sit home waiting for the Child Study Team tohand down a decision in which you did not participate.Attend the meeting and speak up. Frequently, the very factthat you disagree will be enough to sway members of theteam to your way of thinking, especially if you can provide aconvincing argument why your request is reasonable.

Step 2. Enlist outside help. If you have made your objec-tions known and you still can’t persuade team members to


agree to your accommodation request, you might have toenlist outside help.

When your child comes up before the Child Study Team,you should be given a statement of your rights along with alist of places to go for assistance if you and the team can’tagree.The list will usually contain addresses and telephonenumbers for advocacy groups who work on behalf of theOffice for Civil Rights. If you don’t receive such a list or youneed further help, you may contact the Office for CivilRights directly at the U.S. Department of Education, Officefor Civil Rights, Customer Service Team, Mary E. SwitzerBuilding, 320 C Street, SW, Washington, DC 20202.Telephone: (800) 421-3481; fax:202-205-9862;TDD:877-521-2172; e-mail: [email protected].

The Office for Civil Rights can refer you to appropriateadvocacy groups in your area where you can obtain legalservices. These services are usually free. Staffers at thesegroups will listen to your concerns and recommend appro-priate action.They may tell you that your requests are inap-propriate,or they may decide that your child is being wrong-fully denied appropriate accommodations and will help youfight for them.

This process usually begins by having the advocacygroup or the Office for Civil Rights request a meeting withthe person who coordinates services for students servedunder the Rehabilitation Act for the school district.The advo-cate will then try to persuade school personnel to agree tothe reasonable accommodations.

Sometimes the threat of further action will be enoughfor you to get what you asked for, especially if there was dis-agreement among the team members.However, if the schooldistrict still does not agree to the accommodations, it may benecessary to file a formal complaint with the Office for Civil

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Rights. The Office for Civil Rights would then make a pre-liminary investigation and may hold a formal hearing. If theschool district loses at the hearing, the Office of Civil Rightswould direct school personnel to make the requestedaccommodations under threat of loss of federal funding. Ifyou lose, you will have to decide whether you would preferto just drop the matter or whether you are willing to go tothe time, trouble, and expense of filing a lawsuit.

Individuals with Disabilities Education ActThe Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is the latestrevision of Public Law 94-142, which requires school dis-tricts to identify students with certain specific handicapsand to provide special education and related services tothem. Some of the handicaps served under IDEA include:

• Learning disabilities• Mental retardation• Serious emotional disturbance• Visual or hearing problems• Orthopedic problems• Other health problems

You may be confused about the difference between dis-abilities identified under the Rehabilitation Act and handi-caps identified under IDEA. Essentially, the law assumes thatstudents with disabilities identified under the RehabilitationAct can obtain an appropriate education provided that theyreceive appropriate accommodations. However, studentswith handicaps covered under IDEA can’t receive an appro-priate education without a comprehensive educational pro-gram including individualized special education and related


services.While the Rehabilitation Act defines a disability asany condition that limits an individual’s ability to engage inone or more major life activities, IDEA limits handicaps to aset of narrowly defined conditions.

The document that specifies every aspect of the child’seducational program under IDEA is the IndividualizedEducation Program, or IEP. The IEP must address whetherthere will be any changes to testing procedures and whatthe changes will be.

Until recently,many school districts commonly excludedmany students with handicaps from taking standardizedtests, whether it was warranted or not, especially if the stu-dents had previously scored lower than the school’s averageon standardized tests. In fact, a widespread practice in manyschools until recently was to refer children who scored lowon standardized tests for evaluation under IDEA in hopesthat the school district could exclude them from takingstandardized tests if they could qualify for placement. Thispractice occurred often enough so that some educatorsbegan to demand that the state start checking a school’sdecisions regarding standardized testing accommodations.

Today it’s not so easy to exclude children from stan-dardized testing unless their handicaps are extremelysevere. Most state departments of public instruction nowrequire schools to follow fairly strict guidelines on theaccommodations they can make. For example, most statesnow require that students not be excluded from standard-ized tests unless they function at the very lowest levels ofintelligence or their other handicaps are so severe that theycan’t possibly get an accurate score even with appropriateaccommodations.

Students under IDEA are only entitled to testing accom-modations that are specifically linked to their specific hand-icaps. For example:

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• Jason has a severe learning disability in reading compre-hension, so he can take standardized tests in a separateroom where an aide reads test questions to him.

• Marilyn has a learning disability in mathematics calcula-tion, so she is allowed to use a calculator on the mathe-matics reasoning sections of standardized tests.

• Janet has severe cerebral palsy and is classified as ortho-pedically handicapped. She can’t use her hands to hold apencil, and her speech is so slow that even when she dic-tates answers to an aide, she takes much longer to give ananswer.Her school decides she can dictate her answers toan aide and can take the tests without being timed.

• George is classified under IDEA with extremely low intel-ligence that is so poor he isn’t very aware of his sur-roundings. He can’t understand most things people say tohim, and he can’t make his needs known. The schooldecides his handicap is so severe that he can be excludedfrom group standardized testing.

If You Disagree

Your rights under IDEA are even broader than with theRehabiliation Act and, in some instances, bring you greaterpower to go after what you want for your child.

As the parent of a student served under IDEA, you havethe right to be an equal member of the team that determineswhether or not your child will be classified as handicappedunder IDEA and that constructs the IEP. The IEP mustaddress whether the student has any special needs thatrelate to testing and what testing accommodations are nec-essary to meet those needs.

The most important step that you can take as a memberof the team is to decide whether testing accommodationsare necessary and what they might be.One of the most com-


mon unreasonable demands parents make of the schoolsunder IDEA is for testing accommodations that either areunrelated to the child’s handicap or are out of proportion tothe child’s handicap. For example, many parents demandmajor accommodations such as having the entire test readto a child when the handicap is a mild math calculationproblem. Other parents demand that their child be excusedfrom testing altogether even though there is a mild ortho-pedic handicap that doesn’t interfere with normal testingprocedures.

You should recognize that school districts can only pro-vide certain accommodations to students, particularly thosewhose handicaps are relatively mild. If your child has a mildlearning disability in basic reading skills but is able to payattention well and never disrupts the class, it would proba-bly not be appropriate to demand individualized administra-tion of the group standardized tests. If she has a mild hear-ing handicap but seems to do well in school with a hearingaid and one hour per week special education, then demand-ing that she be excluded from standardized testing altogeth-er is probably not appropriate.

Start by looking at your child’s handicap and at the typesof limitations that handicap poses to your child every day.Ask for testing accommodations that are consistent withthose limitations and the types of accommodations yourchild requires. For example, a child who has a learning dis-ability in basic reading skill may provide the incorrectanswers to test questions because she misreads them. Themath problem may say, “Susie has three brothers,” but shemay read it as,“Sitting in a tree,” or the words may be non-sense to her. In that case, it would be reasonable and appro-priate to at least ask that she listen to a tape with the testquestions on it or that an aide read the questions to her.

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As with parents whose children are served under theRehabilitation Act, the most effective tool for parents whosechildren are served under IDEA is a combination of reasonand persuasion. Do your homework. Make sure you haveread every evaluation your child has ever had and that youare familiar with every special service your child has everreceived.

It’s important to stay calm when you’re trying to per-suade members of the Child Study Team to make the accom-modations you believe are appropriate. It’s only humannature to resent it when someone is threatening or verballyabusive,and school personnel are no exception. If you comeinto school acting hysterical or making threats that you can’tpossibly carry out, you’ll be labeled an unstable parent andyou’ll have a much harder time getting cooperation.

But suppose that you’ve made every effort to explainyour child’s testing accommodation needs and you’re stillturned down. You have some rights under IDEA that youwouldn’t have under the Rehabilitation Act.

First, you have the right to ask for a local due processhearing. Sometimes just the threat of a hearing will beenough to sway other team members to agree to the accom-modation you are seeking. If a hearing is scheduled, you andthe school will have an opportunity to speak before animpartial hearing officer. All school districts must maintainlists of individuals qualified to serve as hearing officers.Thehearing officer will listen to both sides of the case and thenwill render a decision.

You’re entitled to representation by an attorney, and it’susually worthwhile to have one, especially if you’re not surewhat your rights are and if you feel overwhelmed or threat-ened. Make sure your attorney has specific training andexperience in special education law. You should receive


from the school a list of resources from which you mayobtain free or low-cost legal representation as well as a listof the appropriate advocacy groups. You also may contactthe Office for Civil Rights.

In many cases, the conflict ends with the decision of thelocal due process hearing officer. The loser often decidesthat the chance of getting the decision overturned isn’tworth the time, inconvenience, and expense of an appeal.But the loser does have the right to appeal through a state-level due process hearing. If you or the school disagreeswith the outcome of the local hearing and wishes to appeal,the hearing officer must notify the state education agency,which will arrange for a state-level hearing.

If you lose at the state level, you can then choose to suethe school district.You would follow the same steps at thispoint that you would in any other legal action, going as faras the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

Something Else to ConsiderSchool districts can’t easily change the way they administergroup standardized tests. The more they depart from stan-dardized directions, the more reluctant they are to makeadditional changes and the more evidence they must have tojustify those changes.And the more radically the school dis-trict departs from standardized test procedures with yourchild, the less it will be able to defend the test results.

The likelihood that the school district may not be able toinclude your child’s test scores in tallying school, school district, and statewide results may not sound very important.But depending on the particular tests, the number of areas in which there were major departures from standard procedures, and the greater the departure from standard pro-

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cedures, the more likely it will be that your child’s per-formance will be recorded as a failure regardless of hisscores. For example, if your child was allowed to use a cal-culator during the mathematics reasoning section of the test,not only is it likely that the school district can’t report thosescores with the other students’ scores, but your child’s permanent record may reflect a failure on mathematics reasoning.

SummarySchool districts must follow directions for administeringgroup standardized tests.No serious accommodations can bemade unless your child has an Individualized Accommoda-tion Plan under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act or anIndividualized Education Program under the Individuals withDisabilities Education Act.The burden is on you to convincethe school if you believe your child is entitled to significantaccommodations. Neither the Rehabilitation Act nor IDEAgives parents the right to tell schools what to do. If theschool refuses to make accommodations you think are justi-fied, you can seek help from advocacy groups, the Office forCivil Rights, and private attorneys.



C H A P T E R

From California to Iowa

Many school administrators and teachers are quite con-cerned about standardized test results because their

very jobs may depend on producing high test scores. As thepublic demands accountability, standardized test resultshave become the primary gauge by which schools arejudged.

In the hands of knowledgeable educators and policy-makers who know the right way to use standardized testresults, scores can be a valuable tool in evaluating groups ofstudents and determining whether tax dollars are beingused appropriately.But there are some rules that must be fol-lowed. In this chapter, we’ll discuss some of the principlesbehind the appropriate use of standardized tests and pro-vide some examples of the right and wrong ways to usestandardized tests.

Testing experts rely on a set of authoritative standardsfor testing called Standards for Educational and Psycho-logical Testing, published jointly by the American Educa-

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tional Research Association, the American PsychologicalAssociation, and the National Council on Measurement inEducation.The Standards provide the basis for how educa-tional and psychological tests are constructed, how they areadministered, and how results should be used. If there is acourt challenge about standardized tests, the courts basetheir decision on the Standards.

The most important point in the Standards emphasizesthat tests must be used as they were designed to be used, tomeasure only what they were designed to measure. Beforepeople use an educational or psychological test to makeimportant decisions, they must be able to produce evidencethat they are using the tests appropriately.

So let’s look at how to use standardized tests withgroups and with individuals.

Group Tests

The most important thing to remember is that group testsassess groups, not individuals. Group standardized tests canbe used to test many students quickly and efficiently.Educators and legislators see a need to compare largegroups of students to identify where students are doing welland where there are problems. It would be difficult andexpensive to test large groups of students individually.

Even if there were enough school psychologists to testevery child in every school district every year, and even if itwere appropriate to repeat the same individual psychologi-cal tests year after year, the public wouldn’t put up with theextra expense. But there is a much cheaper alternative.

The major test companies have constructed group stan-dardized tests that, for only dollars per child,can quickly test

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as many children as necessary. Since only minimal training isrequired for the person actually handing out and monitoringthe test (to make sure that the test takes place under stan-dard conditions and the students follow standard instruc-tions), it’s an easy matter to test all children at the same time.

For the most part, children taking standardized testsanswer multiple-choice questions on special scanningsheets. (See Chapter 2 for more information on multiple-choice questions.) With multiple-choice tests, we can morereadily agree on the correct answer.

But sometimes there can be problems even with objec-tive scoring, including mistaken scoring, limitations on whatcan be tested, and superficiality.

MistakesDid you ever receive an incorrect phone bill or perhaps acredit card charge for something you never bought?Computer programs contain errors, the equipment breaksdown, scanners don’t scan, people enter incorrect informa-tion, and so on. With standardized tests, sometimes testdevelopers give programmers erroneous answer keys or theprogrammers key in the wrong answers.At other times, stu-dents make stray marks on their test forms that cause thecomputers to scan improperly.

You might remember, for example, when a testing com-pany’s mistake sent nearly 9000 New York City students tosummer school or caused them to repeat a grade.A similarerror by the same company nearly sent another 5000 SouthCarolina students to summer school by mistake.These prob-lems in both New York City and South Carolina highlight thefact that parents can’t afford to accept the results of so-called objective scoring.

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Limits

Another problem with objectively scored questions is thelimits they place on what can be tested.The multiple-choiceformat can only ask questions that a student answers bychoosing among alternatives. The questions must be writtenso students can recognize the correct answers. But whatabout the ability to build an argument for one position oranother and to justify that position? What about the abilityto describe the plot of a novel? It’s almost impossible toassess this greater depth of knowledge using multiple-choice questions.

SuperficialityIt’s impossible to fairly test every aspect of every curricu-lum. It’s more efficient and cost-effective to develop teststhat represent the general subjects most children study inschool. As long as we use large numbers of students to makecomparisons, it’s usually possible to make some reasonablyvalid comparisons among large groups.

For instance,we assume that most children learn the dif-ference between a noun and a verb; that they learn addition,subtraction, multiplication, and division; and that they readsome classic novels such as The Red Badge of Courage orLittle Women during their school careers. So test companiesconstruct standardized test items that test students’ learningin a broad way. This represents a trade-off between cost-effectiveness and the degree of emphasis we can put on thescores since the scores don’t reflect the many layers oflearning that are taking place.

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For example, the test scores may provide a good way todetermine how fifth grade students at Clark IntermediateSchool are learning general language arts concepts, but theydon’t take into account the fact that the school administra-tion decided to put a strong emphasis on writing and thatthree of the fifth grade students won first places in nationalwriting competitions this year.

At Sam Houston Elementary School, the test scoresreveal that many of the students aren’t proficient in basiclanguage arts when tested in English.They don’t tell us that60 percent of the students use English as a second languagebut that the school has a very strong English as a secondlanguage curriculum that is making a tremendous impact onstudents’ ability to learn English.

To make up for the superficiality of the information thatstandardized tests provide in comparing groups of students,it’s necessary to take into account other factors when eval-uating groups of students, such as:

• How comparable are the groups in ethnic and incomecharacteristics? How many students in each group receivefree lunch? Are there about the same proportions of dif-ferent races?

• What are the educational backgrounds of the parents? Arewe comparing students in one group who come fromhomes in which neither parent finished high schoolagainst students with college-educated parents?

• Do the groups have similar available resources? Does onegroup have new computer labs with the latest education-al software and a well-stocked library with up-to-date


resources,but the other comes from schools in poor com-munities with no computers, a poor library, and outdatedmultimedia resources?

Right Way to Use Standardized Tests Group standardized tests can be used effectively to compareone grade with another or one school with another, or todetermine change over time.

Dr. Elwine, the principal at Eagle Lake ElementarySchool, suspects that the fourth grade math curriculum ather school is weak.Since students in grades 1 through 5 takethe Stanford Achievement Test every year, she pulls out thelatest standardized test math scores and plots the averagescores on a piece of graph paper. She sees that the scores ingrades 1, 2, and 3 are usually at about the same level but thatthey drop in fourth grade and then slowly rise in fifth grade.She decides there is good reason to look deeper into thepossibility that there is a problem with the fourth grademath curriculum.

Meanwhile, the school board of Fairfield School Districtwants to know how its students at West Gate Middle Schoolare learning compared with students in other middleschools in the area. The board finds several other areaschools with the same educational and economic levels, sim-ilar racial and ethnic makeup, and equivalent level of facultyeducation.The school board compares the TerraNova scoresof West Gate Middle School with those of the other schoolsand finds that West Gate students scored slightly higher inmath but slightly lower in language arts than the otherschools.

Jim Hicks came to Dove Elementary School as principalthree years ago. Dove is located in what had been a thriving

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community until a major plant shut down, leaving most par-ents unemployed and their families on food stamps. Thosewho didn’t move away to find other jobs were mainly uned-ucated, chronically unemployed parents. Currently, 92 per-cent of the children at the school are on free lunch, and par-ent attendance at the parent-teacher meetings has been sopoor that the organization stopped meeting four years ago.

Mr. Hicks knows that the school’s Iowa Tests of BasicSkills scores have been the lowest in the county for the pastfive years, but he aggressively recruits strong teachers withsolid reputations and badgers the school district administra-tion for books, computers, building repairs, and money forfield trips.

Although the school’s test scores are still the lowest inthe county, Mr. Hicks proudly shows the school board achart depicting strong growth in the school’s test scoresover the past three years, with a significant decrease in stu-dent and faculty absenteeism and resurrection of theschool’s parent-teacher organization.

Wrong Ways to Use GroupStandardized Test Scores

Many of the most blatant misuses of standardized tests withgroups come from the mistaken level of faith many lawmak-ers and even educators (who should know better) place instandardized test scores. They will frequently consider testscores as the only indicator of how groups of students arelearning.

For example,King Elementary School serves the poorestcommunity in the school district,with the highest crime andtruancy rates and parents with the least education. Eventhough the school continues to have the lowest standard-


ized test scores of any school in the district, there have beentremendous improvements in test scores since Dr. Damsonwas hired as principal. School attendance and teachermorale have improved.

But the school board warns Dr. Damson that if theschool’s test scores remain below the national average, shewill lose her job. The local paper runs a feature about theschool’s low test scores. Sadly, the school board and thenewspaper ignore how students’ learning is affected by thecommunity’s poverty and the poor educational level of theparents—and that ultimately, this affects standardized testscores.

On the other hand, Northern Elementary is situated inthe most affluent part of the county, and most of its studentscome from homes in which both parents completed col-lege. The school is situated close to the headquarters forAcme Industries, and the children of many of the highly paidtop executives at Acme attend the school. Acme has builtstate-of-the-art multimedia and computer labs at the schooland donates thousands of dollars a year for library books andother programs.

Each year, the principal takes credit for the school’s rank-ing of highest test scores in the county. The principal andthe school board credit the high scores in the school to theirleadership and innovative educational practices.

The America’s Finest program’s charter says that its mis-sion is to identify the best schools in the country. Each year,schools from all over the country apply for the America’sFinest designation.The main yardstick the program uses tocompare the schools is scores from group standardizedtests. It ignores improvements in test scores over time andcould not care less about factors such as the racial and eth-nic composition and the economic and educational levels of

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the families the students come from. Invariably, the programidentifies schools from affluent, predominately white, sub-urbs as America’s Finest.

The test publishers for the large, commercially preparedgroup standardized tests (such as those discussed inChapters 8 through 12) are able to produce research find-ings that their tests can tell how students in large groups asa whole are mastering basic academic skills. Comparinglarge groups of students on broad areas measured by groupstandardized tests generally meets the criteria set forth inthe Standards.

Not a Diagnostic Tool

One of the first lessons that new graduate students in psy-chology learn is that no single test can tell us everything weneed to know about anyone. Remember that to make it pos-sible to test large groups of students quickly, efficiently, andcheaply, and to make it possible for people with very littletraining to administer group standardized tests in a standardmanner, we have to make some sacrifices.

Since standardized tests generate information on indi-vidual students, administrators find it very tempting to usethose results to diagnose individual students’ learning. Butthere are many reasons why this is inappropriate.

To be able to machine-score large numbers of testsheets, test questions must be multiple-choice or true/false.Questions also must be broad so they can focus on generalaspects of most curricula. Finally, these tests usually makeconclusions about broad academic areas on the basis of onlyseveral dozen multiple-choice items, and therefore, there isjust not enough information from them to provide definitivediagnoses for individual students. Table 7-1 summarizes


some similarities and differences between individual psy-chological tests and group standardized tests.

Table 7-1 A Comparison of Individual Psychological Tests andGroup Standardized Tests

Individual GroupPsychological Standardized

Tests Tests

Content Specific: Some, in fact, General: Some, in fact,can be very specific can be quite superficial

Cost per individual Relatively expensive Relatively inexpensive

Time required Relatively lengthy Relatively quickadministration administration

How many students One As many as we wantwe can test in onesitting

Examiner Professional, multi- Briefing regardingqualifications year degree (such as standard administration

psychologist or procedures, usuallyspeech and language through reading atherapist) required pamphlet or attending

an in-service workshop

How flexible are Moderately rigid: The Extremely rigid: Theprocedures person administering person administering

the test must follow the test must ensurestandard directions, that only designatedbut there is some procedures areprovision for altera- followedtion of proceduresunder prespecifiedconditions

How valuable the High value as one Moderately poor valuetest is for diagnosis point of data even as one point ofof individual screening data; must belearning supplemented by

extensive additionalinformation

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Individual GroupPsychological Standardized

Tests Tests

Starting and ending Usually determined Everyone taking thepoint determination individually:Work same test begins and

backward until the ends at the same placestudent correctlyanswers a certainnumber of questionsin a row and then work forward untilthe student misses acertain number ofquestions in a row

Provision for year- Typically designed Due to the presence ofafter-year to be administered alternate forms, it isadministration once or only a few possible to administer

subsequent times, yearlywith intervalsbetween testing ofsix months to threeyears minimum

Another problem with making individual assessmentsbased on group standardized tests involves the qualificationsof the examiner. Before psychologists may administer indi-vidual intelligence or achievement tests, they must takemany advanced classes in test theory, learning, and statistics.They must study various learning disorders, review hun-dreds of case files, and administer and report the results ofhundreds of tests under supervision. When psychologistsconduct an individual examination of a student’s knowl-edge, they know in detail what information the test scoresreveal.But they are also trained to be sensitive to any factorsthat may make a child respond in an unreliable manner, suchas illness, emotional upset resulting from, say, a death in the


family,uncomfortable testing environment, vision or hearingproblems, and so on.

The person administering group tests, in contrast, doesnot have the training to be attentive to the kinds of prob-lems that might cause students’ test scores to be unreliable.Unless children come up and insist that they are too sick tocontinue, the examiner isn’t in a position to determine thattesting should be discontinued.And since the test company,not the person giving the test, provides the score report,there is no way for the person giving the test to provide anyinsight about whether the results are reliable.

This doesn’t mean that the group standardized scorereports that come home with your child are useless. Theyprovide one bit of information—but not the whole picture.Think of the health screenings you’ve probably seen at yourlocal shopping mall. The health fair booths offer shoppersscreenings of a range of health issues, such as:

• Vision• Hearing• Weight• Blood pressure• Cholesterol• Blood sugar level• Spinal straightness• Posture

Sam Smith, a 67-year-old retired truck driver, goes to thehealth fair and learns that his blood pressure is high and hisvision is not as good as it might be.The nurse performing thevision screening also notes that it looks as if Sam may havea cataract in the right eye.There’s no doctor standing thereto issue Sam a prescription for blood pressure medication or

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to arrange for him to see an ophthalmologist to have thecataract evaluated or removed. These are only screenings,and so the nurse advises Sam to make appointments withhis doctor and his eye care professional to discuss theresults.

In the same way that we use these screenings at a healthfair to determine if we have a health problem that may war-rant a visit to the doctor, you can use the results of groupstandardized tests as one point of information to help spot alearning problem and to indicate the need for further indi-vidual testing.

For example, Sammy is doing well in school. He com-pletes his assignments and makes good grades. His math cal-culation score on the group standardized test from lastspring was below average, but his teachers look over hismath work and don’t see a problem.They decide to monitorhim for problems but not to take the low group standard-ized test score very seriously.

Melissa, however, isn’t doing well in school. Her classwork and test grades are below average.She’s already repeat-ing third grade, and it doesn’t look as if she will be promot-ed to fourth. Her teacher and parents have accumulated aportfolio of her work that shows that she doesn’t under-stand even basic skills in any of her subjects. Everyoneagrees that she tries very hard. Her group standardized testscores were so low that several sections were unscorable.

Her parents note that she often seems very frustrated athomework time, and she’ll cry and fuss to avoid doing it.They decide to refer her to the Child Study Team at herschool to determine whether the school psychologistshould evaluate her for a handicap.

Unfortunately, schools too often use group standardizedresults with individuals in ways that aren’t appropriate. For


example, Leslie is doing well in fourth grade and making topgrades in each subject. She seems happy in school, andeveryone agrees that she’s an eager, effective student. Buther group standardized test results indicated that her mathis below average, and so Leslie is placed in the school’s com-pensatory math program. She must leave her class each dayso she can receive math instruction at a much lower level.The test publisher is unable to provide any research evi-dence that the test actually distinguishes between individu-al students who are and aren’t learning math effectively. Infact, the publisher provides a cautionary statement in its testmanual that it’s not valid for interpretation with individualstudents. In this case, the school district’s use of the testresults as the sole criterion to place students into compen-satory math does not meet the criteria provided in theStandards.

Jared’s group aptitude test score was very high, as wereall his scores on the group standardized test. Because ofthese scores, he is placed into the school’s gifted program.Sarah had average scores on the group aptitude test and onlyslightly above average scores on the group achievement test,which disqualify her from participation in the school’s gift-ed program.Yet there is no evidence, either from the pub-lisher or from any other source, that the particular standard-ized test can discriminate between gifted and nongifted stu-dents.This use of the group standardized test scores violatesthe requirement expressed in the Standards that those whouse test results must provide convincing evidence that thetest is being used in a valid manner.

In South Carolina, students who don’t qualify for place-ment in their schools’ gifted programs no longer have theoption of going outside the school district to obtain privateindividual testing. Recent regulations by the state board of

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education specifically prohibit schools from substituting pri-vate, individual intelligence testing—even with individuallyadministered instruments that were actually designed to dis-criminate between gifted and nongifted students and givenby properly trained and licensed school psychologists—forgroup standardized test results in classifying children as gift-ed.There is a substantial body of research that the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale the private psychologists use doesdiscriminate between students who are and who aren’t gift-ed. The use of the individually administered Stanford-BinetIntelligence Scale meets the criteria specified by theStandards, but the regulations prohibit parents from obtain-ing those results from private psychologists.

Rather, parents are forced to follow the results of thegroup standardized tests, although there is no evidence thatthey can discriminate between students who are and whoaren’t gifted. The use of the group standardized tests forplacement of students in South Carolina as gifted would notmeet requirements set forth in the Standards.

SummaryGroup standardized test results are best used to comparegroups of students.We should be extremely cautious whenusing group standardized test scores with individuals formany reasons, since the tests were never designed to pro-vide detailed diagnostic information for single students.These tests can be useful as one bit of information in dis-covering students who need further assessment, but learn-ing problems or giftedness should never be diagnosed inindividual students on the basis of scores from group stan-dardized aptitude or achievement tests.



C H A P T E R

The TerraNova Series:The ComprehensiveTest of Basic Skillsand the CaliforniaAchievement Test

The TerraNova series is a comprehensive group of stan-dardized tests published by CTB/McGraw-Hill, which

has offered a wide range of tests and services for more than70 years. The publisher currently helps school districtsadminister and score more than 20 million tests a year, andfurnishes 23 state education departments with major testingproducts.

With the recent addition of the latest revision of theCalifornia Achievement Test, the publisher now offers two

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versions: the TerraNova CTBS, featuring the ComprehensiveTest of Basic Skills (CTBS), and the TerraNova CAT, featuringthe California Achievement Test (CAT).

The CTBS and the CAT have long been mainstays of stan-dardized testing in the United States.The two versions of theTerraNova measure the same skill areas and may be consid-ered alternate forms.

Features of the TerraNova

With both versions, the TerraNova development team stud-ied input from teachers, school administrators, students, andparents to determine what would make the test more user-friendly than previous standardized tests.As a result, the newversions have richer graphics, with the look and feel of thesort of materials that students encounter in school everyday. Artwork,page layout, and color were chosen to capturestudents’ interest.

TerraNova developers also wanted to create tests thatcorrespond to students’ daily experience. New illustrations,graphics, and photographs were designed to match thosethat students would encounter every day in magazines andbooks, with up-to-date stories and art.

Then, during the design phase of the TerraNova, expertsobserved children taking the tests to assess how user-friend-ly the materials were.Were they easy to read? Was it easy forthe students to move from one page or section to the next?Were the graphics effective? The developers also conductedblind focus groups of veteran teachers and school adminis-trators and asked them to provide detailed opinions andfeedback regarding specific elements and the design of thetests.

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Decision-Making ToolsThe two versions of the TerraNova feature revised interpreta-tion guides for parents and teachers that help them betterunderstand the tests and how they relate to the typical class-room curriculum. Their Classroom Connections materialsprovide teacher aids for instruction planning, and the pub-lisher claims that they help educators make better decisions.

State departments of public instruction and local schooldistricts can receive expanded reports of results, and havethe option of receiving data on CD-ROM to help themarchive and retrieve data and generate a wide range ofreports.The TerraNova reports of test results are so compre-hensive that they were used in Chapter 3 as a model forinterpretation of score reports.

According to the publisher, having the same skill areason the TerraNova CAT as the TerraNova CTBS allows for easycomparison of results from the two versions.However, sincethe two versions feature different tests, parents and schooladministrators should be very cautious about overinterpre-tation of differences between scores on the two versionssince they are, in effect, comparing apples and oranges.

The TerraNova comes in several modular versions toallow state departments of public instruction and localschool districts to purchase only the materials they need.The “Contents”section later in this chapter describes the dif-ferent options in detail.

Bias ReductionStandardized tests have historically been notorious for beingbiased against certain ethnic and cultural groups. In the past,critics of standardized tests have noted that publishers

The TerraNova Series 137

chose the content of some standardized tests from thewhite, middle-class segment of society. Minority groups,especially Native American, African-American, and Hispanicstudents, were not familiar with the content, and as a possi-ble result, they made lower scores.

The publisher claims that it has made every attempt toensure that the content of the two current versions is asunbiased as possible by closely examining bias-reductionstudies and using what they learned to help them includemore culture-free content or content that would be familiarto cultures other than the white middle class. Throughoutthe test-writing procedure, the publisher followed the beliefthat the best way to guard against bias was to develop testquestions that actually measure what the questions claim tomeasure fairly and accurately.

The CTB/McGraw-Hill development team also used theMcGraw-Hill Guidelines for Bias-Free Publishing, whichthe company developed to help eliminate bias. The teamissued specific guidelines to test makers to help them avoidbias or cultural and gender stereotyping. An internal reviewteam then carefully examined each test item to make surethat it met those guidelines.

The publisher also asked educational professionals rep-resenting various ethnic groups to examine all test materialsto determine whether the test questions met the guidelinesfor appropriate language, subject matter, and representation.In addition, CTB/McGraw-Hill conducted sophisticated sta-tistical analyses to discover any statistical biases in test itemsby carefully examining whether there was any relationshipbetween students’ ethnic groups and their test scores.

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Test ValidityThe TerraNova development team examined the curricula,textbooks, and standards used in different states.They alsomet with education experts to help construct test items thatmatched the information students encounter in theirschools.The development team conducted many studies tocompare students’ TerraNova scores with their scores onother standardized tests, and found that the TerraNova doescompare very strongly with other similar tests.

ContentsThe two versions of the TerraNova assess the same subjectareas. School districts or state education agencies are able tobuy just the components they need and not those theywon’t administer.

TerraNova: Complete BatteryThe Complete Battery contains the full versions of each ofthe tests offered on all the TerraNova versions.The CompleteBattery has two parts, the core tests and the supplementaltests.

The core tests include:

• Reading/Language Arts• Mathematics• Science• Social Studies

The supplemental tests include:


• Word Analysis• Vocabulary• Language Mechanics• Spelling• Mathematics Computation

Multiple Assessments

The Multiple Assessments module measures important basicand applied skills. It includes not only multiple-choice ques-tions but also short-answer and essay questions. The pub-lisher scores the multiple-choice answers by machine, buthires professional staff who have been specifically andextensively trained in scoring essays in a reliable and con-sistent manner.

The Multiple Assessments module emphasizes core sub-jects that allow comparison of school, school district, andstate results to the areas commonly assessed by other testsin other states. Specific tests in this module include:

• Reading/Language Arts• Mathematics• Science• Social Studies

TerraNova: Survey

CTB/McGraw-Hill created the Survey module for those situations in which time is a prime consideration and norm-referenced scores are needed without the depth or fullrange of reports available on the Complete Battery. It em-phasizes a broad assessment of the academic areas coveredon the Complete Battery, but in a much shorter time.

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In addition to norm-referenced information, the Surveymodule provides information to assist school personnel incorrelating the results to curricula. As with the CompleteBattery, the Survey module offers core and supplementaltests:

Core Tests• Reading/Language Arts• Mathematics• Science• Social Studies

Supplemental Tests (Survey Plus)• Word Analysis• Vocabulary• Language Mechanics• Spelling• Mathematics Computation

TerraNova: Custom Modules

CTB/McGraw-Hill also works with school districts to pro-vide other combinations of the above assessments as need-ed. The typical schools that require custom modules arethose with unique curriculum objectives not measured bythe other available tests.

CTB/McGraw-Hill can provide supplemental test itemsdesigned to measure these unique objectives.The publisherhas tried to match the TerraNova objectives to the curriculain many states. The custom modules provide additionalassessments for areas not typically assessed.



C H A P T E R

The Iowa Testsof Basic Skills

The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) has been a popularstudent assessment tool for more than 60 years.

Riverside Publishing Company marketed the newest versionof the ITBS (Form M) in 1995. University of Iowa testauthors revised the ITBS to include the newest and mostcurrent test items.

Features at a GlanceAccording to the publisher, the ITBS Form M has the fol-lowing new or enhanced features:

• Enhanced graphics.The familiar format of teaching mate-rials that students encounter every day.

• Score reports. Attractive, informative reports for teachers,counselors, administrators, and parents. Riverside now

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makes available a new report that tracks students’ scoresas the students progress from grade to grade.

• A supplement with short-answer and essay questions thatallow students to demonstrate deeper knowledge of sub-ject matter.

• Extended performance assessments.• Separate writing and listening assessments.• A new, optional, student questionnaire that allows consid-

eration of nonscore data.• Bias protection. The publisher tried to reduce gender,eth-

nic, and cultural bias by submitting all items to panels ofexperts representing these groups and eliminating ormodifying items those experts believed were biased.

• Consistent grade-based standards and content standardsdetermined by a national panel of curriculum experts.

The ITBS, Form MForm M offers two primary sets of tests: The CompleteBattery and the Survey Battery. The Complete Battery pro-vides many questions that assess broad academic areas,including:

• Reading• Language Arts• Mathematics• Social Studies• Science• Information Sources

The Survey Battery offers assessments of the same broadacademic areas as the Complete Battery but in less depth, forthose situations in which quicker results are needed.

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Form M’s Sources of Information test is unique to theITBS. This assessment measures students’ abilities to locateinformation and interpret and evaluate information sources,and it tests a student’s ability to use standard informationsources such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, maps, andglobes.

The format of Form M provides several enhancementsover previous editions. The tests for kindergarten throughthird grade include expanded items with a more open andappealing format in an attempt to hold a young child’s atten-tion.The current edition also includes more black-and-whiteand color graphics.

The development team carefully considered the recom-mendations of teachers and curriculum experts to provideartwork and a format similar to the instructional materialsthat students encounter in school every day. However, thedevelopment team also took care to ensure that the expand-ed graphics and user-friendly look and feel of the scalesdon’t detract from the accuracy of the scales.

Recommended Levels

Form M includes 14 levels across grade levels and curricu-lum areas.

Kindergarten and Grade 1 (Levels 5 and 6). Levels 5and 6 are untimed to prevent the frustration that youngerstudents sometimes experience with timed tests. Due to thelimited reading ability of young students, all tests exceptLevel 6 reading are administered orally.

Test response forms at these levels also take intoaccount a young child’s problems in navigating through atest by allowing students to mark their responses next to theanswer choices. The test booklets have bright, open pages

The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills 145

with large picture responses, using simple line drawings ofanimals and everyday objects to help young students findcorrect test pages.

The Complete Battery for Levels 5 and 6 includes the fol-lowing tests:

• Vocabulary• Listening• Language• Mathematics• Word Analysis (optional)• Reading (optional)

Grades 1, 2, and 3 (Levels 7 and 8). Levels 7 and 8 offerthree sets of tests, including a Complete Battery, a CoreBattery,and a Survey Battery. The Complete Battery providesthese tests:

• Vocabulary• Reading• Listening• Mathematics Concepts• Mathematics Problems• Social Studies• Science• Sources of Information• Word Analysis (optional)• Mathematics Computation (optional)

The Core Battery provides the same assessment as theComplete Battery but without Social Studies, Science, andSources of Information.

The Survey Battery provides selected items from:

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• Vocabulary• Reading• Language• Mathematics Concepts• Mathematics Problems• Mathematics Computation (optional)

Grades 3-9 (Levels 9-14). Riverside offers a CompleteBattery and a Core Battery. Tests in the Complete Batteryinclude:

• Reading• Language• Mathematics• Social Studies• Science• Sources of Information

The Core Battery also includes a choice of separate edi-tions of a four-part language test or a single, integrated writ-ing test.

The development team for levels 9−14 made a specialeffort to make test booklet pages more attractive and inter-esting, with photographs, art, graphics, and the look andfeel of instructional materials. Test booklets for this levelare available as either reusable or machine-scorable book-lets.

Optional Assessments

Riverside offers additional, optional assessments to allowschool districts more flexibility in designing their testingprograms.

The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills 147

The Student Questionnaire consists of 17 items askingstudents about their educational history, reading andstudy habits,use of free time,and use of resources such ascomputers and libraries.

The Constructed Supplement to the Iowa Tests providesopen-ended questions on reading, language, and mathe-matics tests, for which students provide short answers oressay answers.

The Performance Assessments for the ITBS requires students to demonstrate strategic thinking and problem-solving abilities. It provides assessments on integrated language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science.

The Iowa Writing Assessments for the ITBS tests writingskills in narrative, descriptive, persuasive, and expositorytypes of writing. It complements the ITBS language testsby assessing a student’s ability to generate, organize, andexpress ideas.

The Listening Assessment for ITBS provides a wide vari-ety of listening tasks ranging from immediate recall ofevents or details to higher-level listening skills.The mainskills tested include literal meaning, inferential meaning,following directions, visual relationships, and numerical,spatial, and temporal relationships. Students must demon-strate an ability to discern the speaker’s purpose, point ofview, and style.

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C H A P T E R

MetropolitanAchievement Tests

The Metropolitan Achievement Tests, Eighth Edition(METROPOLITAN8), is the current revision of the

Metropolitan Achievement Tests published by HarcourtEducational Measurement.

Its current revision is the product of many years’ effortto construct a standardized group achievement test that isboth user-friendly and accurate, according to the publisher.The development team thoroughly reviewed kindergartenthrough twelfth grade textbooks and curricula to determinethe content and format of test items appropriate for stu-dents at each level.

The team collaborated with education curriculumexperts and thoroughly reviewed research on group stan-dardized achievement tests to match content to what is typ-ically provided to students. The team reviewed every itemon every test for content, style, appropriateness, and bias. It

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developed the tests appropriate for a broad range of stu-dents, including students with special needs. The team madegreat effort to eliminate ethnic, cultural, racial, and genderbias.

METROPOLITAN8 FeaturesHarcourt Educational Measurement emphasizes the follow-ing general features of this new revision:

• Flexible assessment times that give schools more optionsto make changes in the way tests are given.This flexibili-ty is especially important for early grades where youngstudents often become very frustrated with long tests.

• New user-friendly design and ease of use for a student-friendly, up-to-date look like the instructional materialsthat students encounter every day.

• More information in score reports for teachers and parents.• Shorter tests that increase students’ focus and attention.• Alternative versions (including Braille, large print, and

audiotaped editions) for students with special needs.• Open-ended assessments in reading, mathematics, and

writing.• Customized assessments that allow for multiple options,

such as deciding which tests to include, choosing the testorder, and including the OLSAT7 (an aptitude testdescribed in Chapter 11) in students’ test booklets. TheSelectPlus service allows more customization options,including adding or deleting questions or incorporatinglocally designed questions into tests.

• Thirteen test levels based on grade are described inTable 10-1.

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Table 10-1 Metropolitan Achievement Tests,Eighth Edition, Levels

METROPOLITAN8Grade Range Level

Kg.0−Kg.5 PPKg.5−1.5 PR1.5−2.5 P12.5−3.5 P23.5−4.5 E14.5−5.5 E25.5−6.5 I16.5−7.5 I27.5−8.5 I38.5−9.5 I4

9 S110 S2

11−12 S3

METROPOLITAN8 ContentThe METROPOLITAN8 provides tests for the same generalareas as the other major group standardized tests,using bothmultiple-choice and open-ended items.Table 10-2 shows thebroad areas tested and whether the items are multiplechoice or open-ended.

Table 10-2 METROPOLITAN8 General Academic Area Tests

Area Multiple-Choice Items Open-Ended Items

Reading X XMathematics X XLanguage XWriting XScience XSocial Studies X

Metropolitan Achievement Tests 151

Depending on the test level, there are various skills test-ed under each subject. Table 10-3 provides informationregarding the specific academic areas tested at each level.

Table 10-3 Specific Subject Areas Tested by Test Level

Test/Level PP PR P1 P2 E1 E2 I1 I2 I3 I4 S1 S2 S3

Sounds and Print X X X X X

ReadingVocabulary X X X X X X X X X X X

ReadingComprehension X X X X X X X X X X X

Sounds and Print/Total Reading X X X X X X X X X X X X X

Mathematics X X X X X

MathematicsConcepts andProblem Solving X X X X X X X X

MathematicsComputation X X X X X X X X

TotalMathematics X X X X X X X X X X X X X

Language X X X X X X X X X X X X X

Spelling X X X X X X X X X X X

Science X X X X X X X X X X X

Social Studies X X X X X X X X X X X

METROPOLITAN8 ReportsA comprehensive set of reports is provided with each score.These reports include specific actions to help teachers,administrators, and parents plan instructional activities.Thescore reports provide students’ performance levels. Theyalso include supplemental information about the scores that

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reflect thinking and research skills, among others.The pub-lisher also provides score reports matching students’ perfor-mance on METROPOLITAN8 subject areas with state andlocal performance standards.

Harcourt Educational Measurement also offers a uniqueLexile Student Pathfinder Report that claims to match student reading levels to reading materials.This report alsoprovides a list of literature titles appropriate for the stu-dent’s reading level.

Metropolitan Achievement Tests 153


C H A P T E R

Stanford AchievementTest

The Stanford Achievement Test became the nation’s firstachievement test in 1923. Although crude in compari-

son with today’s standardized tests, the original test was thefirst step in a movement to objectively measure how wellstudents are learning in school.

Harcourt Brace markets the modern version of theStanford Achievement Test Series—the Ninth Edition. (Thistest is frequently referred to in the schools as the STAN9,SAT9, or Stanford9. To avoid confusion with the ScholasticAchievement Test, we will refer to it as the Stanford9.)

General FeaturesThe Stanford9 development team made a strong effort toincrease the scale’s emphasis on thinking skills. Improvedareas of strength include:

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• Multiple-Choice Items. Harcourt Brace advertises that theStanford9 has greatly enhanced items drawn from real-lifesituations. Many items measure strategies and processes.

• Open-Ended Items. States and school districts have theoption to use open-ended items (such as essay questions)separately,or as an add-on to complement multiple-choiceassessments. The scoring system Harcourt Brace uses tograde students’ open-ended items allows partial credit asopposed to the all-or-nothing scoring for multiple-choicetests.

• Reading, Listening, and Writing Items.These assess skillsin a realistic manner with subjects drawn from real life.The company commissioned published children’s authorsand illustrators to provide reading passages and illustra-tions unique to the Stanford9.

• Mathematics Items. Math abilities are assessed with anemphasis on the ability to understand and apply commonmathematical principles.The items involve subjects withwhich students will be familiar and comfortable.

• Science and Social Science Items. These types of ques-tions emphasize the mastery of these two subject areas.

How the Test LooksThe Stanford9 comes in many varieties, including full-length,abbreviated, and open-ended batteries ranging from kinder-garten to a year after twelfth grade. Harcourt Brace alsooffers a variety of customization options, including theopportunity to add state determined or locally determineditems.

Schools also can include the aptitude test Otis-LennonSchool Abilities Test, Seventh Edition (OLSAT7), with theachievement tests. Using the aptitude projections from the

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OLSAT7, school personnel can determine students’ predict-ed achievement levels and can then compare the predictedwith the actual achievement to identify potential learningproblems. (See Chapter 12 for descriptions of aptitude testsand their uses.)

FairnessAs all other test publishers, Harcourt Brace was also con-cerned with eliminating test bias. One common source oftest bias lies in directions that students receive.To minimizeor eliminate test bias from this source, the developmentteam emphasized clear, simple instructions that would beunderstandable to students of various ethnic, racial, andsocioeconomic groups.

One problem test administrators noted in the past wasthe frequency with which they had to stop test sessions toclarify directions. Many students found it difficult to main-tain concentration with all the starts and stops.To combatthis problem,students receive a complete set of instructionsat the beginning of each test sitting.

Test Format and Page LayoutThe development team tried to design page layouts for thetest booklets that were easy to use. In the past, many stu-dents with little exposure to age-appropriate learning mate-rials outside of class found it hard to go from one section ofthe page to the next or from one page to the next.

The current version also includes a hard-easy format. Inthis format, easy questions surround difficult questions in aneffort to maintain student interest and avoid the tendency togive up that students have shown in the past when repeat-edly confronted with clumps of difficult items.

Stanford Achievement Test 157

General Bias

To further guard against test bias, the development teamsubmitted all test items to panels of educators drawn fromminority groups to judge the appropriateness of questions,and conducted extensive statistical studies to eliminateitems that displayed a statistical bias in favor of or againstspecific groups.

Stanford9 ContentThe Stanford9 is consistent with the current state of educa-tional knowledge and thinking, according to the publisher.The development team studied state curricula,national stan-dards, and teaching methods to make sure test questionswere grade-appropriate, interesting, and relevant.Table 11-1shows the recommended test levels.

The Stanford9 tests specific subject areas differentlyaccording to whether the items are multiple choice or open-ended.The following areas are assessed with multiple-choiceitems:

• Reading• Mathematics• Language• Spelling• Study Skills• Listening• Science• Social Science

The test assesses the following areas with open-ended(essay or short answer) items:

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• Reading• Mathematics• Language (through the Stanford Writing Assessment

Program,Third Edition)• Science• Social Science

Table 11-1 Recommended Stanford9 Test Levels

Grade Fall Administration Spring Administration

Kindergarten SESAT 1 SESAT 21 SESAT 2 Primary 12 Primary 1 Primary 23 Primary 2 Primary 34 Primary 3 Intermediate 15 Intermediate 1 Intermediate 26 Intermediate 2 Intermediate 37 Intermediate 3 Advanced 18 Advanced 1 Advanced 29 Advanced 2 or Task 1 Advanced 2 or Task 1

10 Task 2 Task 211 Task 3 Task 312 Task 3 Task 313 Task 3

Score ReportsHarcourt Brace offers a wide variety of reports; the mostcommonly requested reports include basic descriptive datasuch as percentiles. The development team tried hard tomake the reports readable, with colorful supplementalgraphs to help parents, teachers, and school administratorsquickly understand individual students’ and groups’ results.

In addition to the common reports such as those pre-sented in Chapter 7, Harcourt Brace provides lexile mea-sures that match students’ profiles with texts and other


instructional materials.There is also a “Thinking Skills” scorebased on selected items from the different subject areas.

Stanford9 reports feature a “Performance Standards” sec-tion developed by teachers that describes what students’results reveal about what the students know and what theyare able to do.This report describes students’ performanceaccording to criteria for four levels:

• Level 1. Below satisfactory• Level 2. Partial mastery• Level 3. Solid academic performance• Level 4. Superior performance

Related Materials

Harcourt Brace promotes a wide variety of related materialsto go along with the Stanford9.

The Guide for Classroom Planning shows teachershow to interpret test results, group students for instruction,evaluate achievement, set instructional profiles, and planparent-teacher conferences. It defines test scores and typesof norms.

For students who speak Spanish, Harcourt Brace offersSpanish-language parallel forms.

The Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test—Multilevel Form isa language-free measure designed to gauge students’abilitiesno matter what their educational, cultural, or language back-ground. Harcourt Brace offers this test as an option for abil-ity-achievement comparisons, especially where language-based assessments would provide distorted information.

KeyLinks: The Connection between Instruction &Assessment is a major product Harcourt Brace offers that isdesigned to help students prepare for standardized tests by

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providing a series of activities that relate to their daily lives.Students learn effective strategies for obtaining their bestscores and become generally familiar with standardizedtesting.

KeyLinks features new materials in reading/languagearts, mathematics, and science. The reading/language artssection provides activities in reading, language, and writing.Reading selections include recreational, expository, andfunctional passages.

The KeyLinks language section includes activities builtaround real-life scenarios. Focused exercises include activ-ities to help students learn prewriting skills including abil-ities such as brainstorming and concept mapping, issues ofpurpose, unity, organization, and language mechanics. Inthe writing section, students produce extended pieces ofwriting.

Mathematics activities emphasize real-world contentrelated to common themes. Skills include whole numbers,number sense and numeration, geometry and spatial sense,measurement, statistics and probability, fraction and decimalconcepts, patterns and relationships, estimation, and prob-lem-solving strategies.This section also covers process skillsincluding problem solving, reasoning, and mathematicalcommunication.

The science section includes life science, physical sci-ence, and earth and space science. Unifying themes of theactivities in this section include form and function, constan-cy and patterns of change, and using evidence and models.The activities in this section emphasize the principles of sci-ence.

Strategies for Instruction:A Handbook of PerformanceActivities, Second Edition, provides grade-specific instruc-tional materials to help teachers gear instruction toward the


types of objectives measured by standardized tests and spec-ified by states, school districts, and individual schools.Strategies in this handbook stress connecting instructionacross reading, mathematics, language, science, and socialscience instructional areas.

The Stanford Diagnostic Mathematics Test, FourthEdition (SDMT 4), provides supplemental information onstudents’ strengths and needs in mathematics. HarcourtBrace points out that if this test is given in the fall, the resultscan provide additional information to teachers planningappropriate math programs.

Finally, The Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test, FourthEdition (SDRT 4), diagnoses students’ strengths and needs inreading. Just as the SDMT 4 can help teachers prepare mathlessons, if this test is administered in the fall, the results canhelp teachers plan reading activities.

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C H A P T E R

Aptitude Tests

When you get your child’s standardized achievementtest results, you may see a cryptic score on the report

that we didn’t discuss in Chapter 3 with a label such as“School Ability Composite” or “Cognitive Ability Index.”These refer to scores on group aptitude tests. Many parentsdon’t really understand the difference between achievementand aptitude tests, or between IQ tests and aptitude tests. Asa result, they sometimes misinterpret what these scoresmean.

To put it simply, aptitude tests predict students’ ability tolearn something in the future. For example, if we want topredict a child’s ability to learn calculus, we could give anaptitude test gauging the student’s understanding of basicmathematical functions and operations. If we want to pre-dict a child’s ability to do well in an advanced writingcourse, we can give an aptitude test looking at the child’smastery of vocabulary, basic language concepts, and sen-tence structure and word meanings.

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Achievement tests try to estimate a student’s currentachievement, and aptitude tests attempt to predict futureachievement.

Why Give Aptitude Tests?The main reason schools administer aptitude tests is togauge their students’ readiness to learn new skills. Forexample, one child may earn his way into Algebra I a yearearly by his score on the math section of an aptitude test.High school students in particular might face aptitude testscore requirements for certain subjects, such as advancedplacement courses or courses offered for college credit. Inearlier grades, schools give the tests to gauge students’ readi-ness to learn general academic skills.

Unfortunately, some schools use aptitude test scores asthe sole indicator of a student’s readiness to learn. In fact, inmany teacher-parent meetings throughout the nation everyyear, teachers hand parents these scores and announce that“this is your child’s IQ.” Many times, students who scoreabove a certain cutoff get into advanced courses, and thosewho score below do not. The second reason schools giveaptitude tests is to compare students’ potential for learningwith their performance.The theory behind this comparisonis that a student’s actual scores on an achievement test incomparison with predicted levels can be an indicator of thequality of the instruction. After all, if one child with anabove-average aptitude for learning in math has below-aver-age scores on math achievement tests, inadequate instruc-tion may be a reason for the discrepancy.

To be fair, other factors that have nothing to do withteaching could also interfere with a student’s performanceon achievement tests despite estimated potential on apti-tude tests. Some of these other factors might include:

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• A learning disability• An uncorrected hearing disorder• A history of poor school attendance• Poor educational support at home• An undetected visual disorder• An emotional disturbance• An invalid aptitude or achievement test

If we look at the aptitude-achievement comparisons of agroup of students and most students achieve at or abovetheir predicted levels, we would look more closely at stu-dents whose achievement scores are significantly lowerthan their predicted levels.We would want to take a look atthose students’ actual functioning in school, includinggrades, homework, and parent and teacher comments, aswell as input by the students themselves, to determinewhether there is an educational or learning problem.

When large groups of students score much lower onachievement tests than predicted by their aptitude scores,this can be a signal that the school should look more close-ly at teachers or curriculum. If students who have had Mr.Jones tend to score significantly lower in reading than pre-dicted by their aptitude test scores, perhaps the administra-tion should take a closer look at Mr. Jones’ competence orthe reading curriculum he uses. If Springfield Elementaryuses Program A to teach math and Union Elementary usesProgram B, and the students at Springfield score in the pre-dicted range on achievement tests but the students at Unionscore lower than predicted, perhaps the school should seewhether Program B is appropriate.This comparison worksin the other direction as well: If students using Program Bscore much higher than expected while students usingProgram A score as predicted, perhaps we need to take a

Aptitude Tests 165

closer look at Program B to determine whether we shouldadopt that program.

Misuses of Aptitude TestsAptitude tests are not IQ tests. Individually administered IQtests examine a student’s function in many areas. Althoughthey are controversial, IQ test scores are still used by manyeducators and psychologists to predict a child’s ability toadapt in all areas of their lives that require reasoning. In con-trast, aptitude tests examine only a narrow range of skillsand abilities that supposedly predict a student’s future per-formance in certain academic skills.

Unfortunately, teachers’ and parents’ expectations canwork both for and against students. Extensive research overseveral decades has demonstrated that teachers’ expecta-tions greatly influence students’ learning. In one early study,researchers gave teachers fake aptitude test scores for theirstudents. When they later examined students’ grades, theyfound a strong relationship between the students’ fake apti-tude test scores and their subsequent grades.

At one time, some schools grouped students accordingto their scores on these aptitude tests. Although it’s now ille-gal to group by ability based on group aptitude test scores,many teachers, parents, and school administrators still inter-pret these scores as IQ scores.

So when these scores come home, remember thatregardless of how high or low the scores may be, these testsare not IQ tests.They are group tests with all the accompa-nying advantages and disadvantages.Aptitude tests are mostuseful when used to provide one measure of learning readi-ness in a very narrow range of skills, especially whenapplied to groups rather than to individuals.

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But you should also be aware that some schools maytreat your child differently based on aptitude test scores. Ifyou hear the school personnel refer to the aptitude score asan “IQ score,” challenge them. Point out that these tests areonly aptitude tests, which assess a much more restrictedrange of skills than do individually administered IQ tests.

You might also point out that the AmericanPsychological Association, as well as federal law and the testpublishers’ guidelines, state clearly that individuals shouldnever be diagnosed or classified on a single test . Even whenusing individually administered tests, psychologists mustbase diagnoses on what the laws and ethical guidelines referto as “an array of information.”

Test BiasTest publishers are acutely aware of past problems with testbias, such as when tests used language that was unfamiliar toa student or included tasks to which a student was notexposed.Today, test publishers are very sensitive to possibletest bias and go to great lengths to eliminate it.

How to Use Aptitude ScoresWhen you see your child’s aptitude test scores, you shouldinterpret those scores by their percentiles, as we recom-mended in Chapter 3. Remember that you should only lookat an aptitude test score as one bit of information.Althoughyou may be tempted to run through the streets screaming,“My child’s a genius!” if the score is high, a very high scoredoesn’t indicate genius.And a very low score doesn’t neces-sarily indicate mental deficiency, either. Unusually high orlow aptitude test scores may be a signal for further investi-

Aptitude Tests 167

gation, but they are inappropriate for diagnosis. Rememberthat students sometimes just don’t do well on tests eventhough their abilities are fine. If the score on a test is low,look at all the other indicators of how your child is doingand see whether there is a pattern of failure. If you’re con-cerned about your child’s score, talk over your concernswith your child’s teachers and guidance counselor. Anunusually low aptitude test score, or a finding that theachievement test score is significantly lower than the apti-tude score predicted, may be an indication that the schoolpsychologist should further evaluate your child’s learning.

Aptitude Test QuestionsMany times the questions on aptitude tests are similar tothose on achievement tests. In trying to predict a student’spotential for learning certain skills, sometimes the best wayto do that is to find out what skills the student has alreadylearned.The major aptitude tests generally assess some com-bination of verbal and nonverbal skills.

Verbal Skills

Verbal aptitude tasks estimate a student’s ability to reasonverbally, which is very strongly related to the ability to mas-ter the traditional academic skills that we call the “three R’s.”Aptitude tests usually measure generally similar thinkingskills such as the ability to discover similarities and differ-ences, memory for words or sentences, the ability to definewords and follow verbal directions, the ability to classifyobjects, and the ability to use analogies.

Verbalizing Similarities and Differences. The follow-ing questions might typically appear on an aptitude test:

168 Chapter 12

1 How are an eagle and a hawk alike?A They are both marsupials.B They are both raptors.C They are both crustaceans.D They are both bovines.

[Answer: B]

2 What is the difference between a ship and a boat?A A ship is bigger than a boat.B A boat is bigger than a ship.C A ship has a motor, but a boat does not.D A boat holds 10 people or less, while a ship holds

more than 10 people.

[Answer: A]

Memory for Words or Sentences. The ability to remem-ber verbal information is important. It’s different from theability to remember nonverbal information, as revealed bythe following questions:

[The following questions are given orally.]

1 Write the following words in the same order that Isay them: apple; cat; pencil; crispy; wonder.

2 Write the following sentence exactly as I say it: Theboy went to the beach, but the water was too cold forhim to swim.

The Ability to Define Words. A strong vocabulary isnecessary to learn effectively.Here are two ways an aptitudetest may assess vocabulary:

Aptitude Tests 169

1 Which of the following words means the same thingas average?A medianB modeC meanD standard deviation

[Answer: C]

2 What is a conflagration?A a bookB an argumentC a mealD a fire

[Answer: D]

The Ability to Follow Verbal Directions. The ability tounderstand spoken or written directions is an important ver-bal skill. Here is a sample of the type of test item that mayassess this ability:

1 Choose the sentence that describes this: “FirstJason removed his baseball cap, and then he put onhis cowboy hat.”A Jason is wearing a baseball cap and holding a

cowboy hat.B Jason is wearing a firefighter’s helmet and is

holding a baseball cap.C Jason is wearing an Apache headdress and is

holding a cowboy hat.

170 Chapter 12

D Jason is wearing a cowboy hat and is holding abaseball cap.

[Answer: D]

The Ability to Verbally Classify. This ability requires achild to be able to look at material in many ways to detectsimilar characteristics. For example, an aptitude test may askthe following question:

1 Choose the word that goes with the following: oak;maple; sycamore.A violetB birchC oreganoD strawberry

[Answer: B]

The Ability to Understand Verbal Analogies. Thiscomplex skill requires students to make comparisons, some-times using highly abstract qualities. For example:

1 Bird is to nest as horse is to _____.A stableB hutchC warrenD den

[Answer: A]

Aptitude Tests 171

Nonverbal Skills

Nonverbal abilities are much less strongly related to tradi-tional academic subjects such as language arts, but they arestrongly related to a student’s potential for learning in someother areas, such as graphic arts or technology. Essentially,nonverbal abilities that aptitude tests measure are related tothe ability to reason without language.They include severalability areas.The following is just a sample of the nonverbalabilities that aptitude tests may measure.

The Ability to Recognize Sequence. This skill involvesbeing able to recognize a pattern. For example:

1 Choose the picture that should come next.

A

B

C

D

[Answer: B]

172 Chapter 12

The Ability to Understand Nonverbal Analogies. Thisskill is similar to the ability to understand verbal analogiessuch as the one given earlier in this chapter, but usingobjects, figures, or other nonverbal examples. This type ofquestion might look like this:

1 Which thing goes into the block with the questionmark?

A B

C D

[Answer: A]

The Ability to Discriminate Similarities and Differ-ences in a Picture. This skill requires students to be ableto see important aspects of objects and to be able to deter-mine similarities and differences. Possible questions thatassess this ability might include:

Aptitude Tests 173

1 Which picture below is the same as the pictureabove?

A B

C D

[Answer: D]

2 Which picture below does not belong with the othersbelow?

A B

C D

[Answer: C]

174 Chapter 12

Quantitative Questions. Quantitative questions simplyrefer to items that involve calculations and the ability tosolve problems using amounts. Aptitude tests try to measurea student’s ability to understand the mathematical conceptsnecessary for more advanced mathematical operations.Hereis a sampling of the types of quantitative abilities that apti-tude tests may measure.

The Ability to Understand Concepts Related toQuantity. Young children don’t understand the conceptof quantity. They will sometimes confuse numerical valuewith size. For example, many young children believe that anickel is worth more than a dime because the nickel is big-ger. As they mature, students will be able to understandmore sophisticated quantitative concepts. Consider the fol-lowing questions:

1 Which of these children has the fewest apples?

A B

C D

[Answer: D]

Aptitude Tests 175

2 Which of these is worth the most money?A a dollarB a dimeC a nickelD a quarter

[Answer: A]

The Ability to Complete Mathematical Operations.This is one of the skills that aptitude tests may measureusing some of the same questions used by achievementtests.A student’s ability to answer basic math questions is avery strong predictor of his or her ability to perform moreadvanced operations.

The following are examples of the types of test itemsthat students may encounter:

1 3 × 5 = ______A 8B 15C 2D 20

[Answer: B]

2 Angela had $6.00. She paid $1.50 to attend theschool carnival. How much money did she have left?A $7.50B $5.50C $4.50D $10.00

[Answer: C]

176 Chapter 12

3 When Juan visited his grandmother’s farm, she hadsix goats. When he visited her again a month later,the number of goats had doubled. How many goatsdid she have then?A 12B 15C 3D 6

[Answer: A]

Group Aptitude TestsEach major publisher of group standardized tests marketsone or more group aptitude tests.As you read about the fol-lowing aptitude tests, note their similarities and differences.Here are samples of the kinds of aptitude measures that pub-lishers market.

Traditional, Language Based Aptitude Measures

The Otis-Lennon School Abilities Test, Seventh Edition(OLSAT7) is produced by Harcourt EducationalMeasurement (see also Chapter 11). Students in gradeskindergarten through 12 can complete this test individuallyor in groups in about 60 to 75 minutes. The test assessesabstract thinking and reasoning, which can help school offi-cials understand students’ relative strengths and weaknessesin performing a variety of reasoning tasks.

The OLSAT7 reports three major scale scores: verbal,nonverbal, and total. The verbal scale includes verbal com-prehension and verbal reasoning.The nonverbal scale con-sists of pictorial reasoning, figural reasoning, and quantita-

Aptitude Tests 177

tive reasoning. In this test, quantitative reasoning skills aregrouped under the nonverbal area.

The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) from Riverside isanother widely used group aptitude test that has beenaround for more than 40 years. Schools can administer thistest in individual or group settings in about 90 minutes. Ithas levels ranging from kindergarten to twelfth grade.

According to the publisher, the primary purpose of thetest is to assess large differences in the ways that studentslearn.The test reports include scores in four main areas: ver-bal, nonverbal, quantitative, and composite.

Nonverbal Aptitude AssessmentThe Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT) is a test offeredby Harcourt Educational Measurement (see also Chapter 11)as an alternative to the traditional, language-based aptitudetest. Schools can administer the test instead of or in additionto other aptitude tests in individual or group settings in aslittle as 30 minutes.

According to the publisher, the NNAT is most usefulwhen students have language problems that could prevent avalid assessment of their learning potential; this includesnon-English speakers and those with language-based learn-ing disabilities. The publishers assert that the test is fairregardless of students’ educational, cultural, and languagebackgrounds, and can be used for students with hearingproblems or color blindness.The test accomplishes this taskby assessing aptitude nonverbally, using shapes and designsnot unique to any particular cultural group.

178 Chapter 12

SummaryAptitude tests try to predict future performance in the class-room or on some other test.They are not IQ tests, althoughmany people mistakenly interpret the scores on such teststhis way.

The major test publishers say that group aptitude testsshould be used as a way to estimate a student’s readiness forinstruction as well as to determine whether achievement (asestimated by achievement test scores) is consistent withaptitude (as estimated by these aptitude test scores).

Aptitude Tests 179


Appendixes



A P P E N D I X

Code of Fair TestingPractices in Education

Prepared by the Joint Committeeon Testing Practices

T he Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education statesthe major obligations to test takers of professionals who

develop or use educational tests. The Code is meant to applybroadly to the use of tests in education (admissions,educational assessment, educational diagnosis, and studentplacement).The Code is not designed to cover employmenttesting, licensure or certification testing, or other types oftesting. Although the Code has relevance to many types ofeducational tests, it is directed primarily at professionallydeveloped tests, such as those sold by commercial test pub-lishers or used in formally administered testing programs.The Code is not intended to cover tests made by individualteachers for use in their own classrooms.

A

183


The Code addresses the roles of test developers and testusers separately. Test users are people who select tests,commission test development services, or make decisionson the basis of test scores. Test developers are people whoactually construct tests as well as those who set policies forparticular testing programs.The roles may,of course,overlapas when a state education agency commissions test devel-opment services, sets policies that control the test develop-ment process, and makes decisions on the basis of the testscores.

The Code presents standards for educational test devel-opers and users in four areas:

A. Developing/Selecting TestsB. Interpreting ScoresC. Striving for FairnessD. Informing Test Takers

Organizations, institutions, and individual professionalswho endorse the Code commit themselves to safeguardingthe rights of test takers by following the principles listed.The Code is intended to be consistent with the relevantparts of the Standards for Educational and PsychologicalTesting (AERA,APA, NCME, 1985). However, the Code differsfrom the Standards in both audience and purpose. TheCode is meant to be understood by the general public; it islimited to educational tests; and the primary focus is onthose issues that affect the proper use of tests.The Code isnot meant to add new principles over and above those inthe Standards or to change the meaning of the Standards.The goal is rather to represent the spirit of a selected por-tion of the Standards in a way that is meaningful to test tak-ers and/or their parents or guardians. It is the hope of theJoint Committee that the Code will also be judged to be con-

184 Appendix A

sistent with existing codes of conduct and standards ofother professional groups who use educational tests.

A. Developing/Selecting Appropriate Tests

Many of the statements in the Code refer to the selection ofexisting tests. However, in customized testing programs testdevelopers are engaged to construct new tests. In those sit-uations, the test development process should be designed tohelp ensure that the completed tests will be in compliancewith the Code.

Test developers should provide the information that testusers need to select appropriate tests.

Test Developers Should:1. Define what each test measures and what the test

should be used for.Describe the population(s) for whichthe test is appropriate.

2. Accurately represent the characteristics, usefulness, andlimitations of tests for their intended purposes.

3. Explain relevant measurement concepts as necessary forclarity at the level of detail that is appropriate for theintended audience(s).

4. Describe the process of test development. Explain howthe content and skills to be tested were selected.

5. Provide evidence that the test meets its intended pur-pose(s).

6. Provide either representative samples or completecopies of test questions, directions, answer sheets, man-uals, and score reports to qualified users.

7. Indicate the nature of the evidence obtained concerningthe appropriateness of each test for groups of differentracial, ethnic,or linguistic backgrounds who are likely tobe tested.

Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education 185

8. Identify and publish any specialized skills needed toadminister each test and to interpret scores correctly.

Test users should select tests that meet the purpose forwhich they are to be used and that are appropriate for theintended test-taking populations.

Test Users Should:1. First define the purpose for testing and the population

to be tested.Then, select a test for that purpose and thatpopulation based on a thorough review of the availableinformation.

2. Investigate potentially useful sources of information, inaddition to test scores, to corroborate the informationprovided by tests.

3. Read the materials provided by test developers andavoid using tests for which unclear or incomplete infor-mation is provided.

4. Become familiar with how and when the test was devel-oped and tried out.

5. Read independent evaluations of a test and of possiblealternative measures. Look for evidence required to sup-port the claims of test developers.

6. Examine specimen sets, disclosed tests or samples ofquestions, directions, answer sheets, manuals, and scorereports before selecting a test.

7. Ascertain whether the test content and norm group(s)or comparison group(s) are appropriate for the intend-ed test takers.

Select and use only those tests for which the skills need-ed to administer the test and interpret scores correctly areavailable.

186 Appendix A

B. Interpreting ScoresTest developers should help users interpret scores correctly.

Test Developers Should:1. Provide timely and easily understood score reports that

describe test performance clearly and accurately. Also,explain the meaning and limitations of reported scores.

2. Describe the population(s) represented by any norms orcomparison group(s), the dates the data were gathered,and the process used to select the samples of test takers.

3. Warn users to avoid specific, reasonably anticipated mis-uses of test scores.

4. Provide information that will help users follow reason-able procedures setting passing scores when it is appro-priate to use such scores with the test.

5. Provide information that will help users gather evidenceto show that the test is meeting its intended purpose(s).

Test users should interpret scores correctly.

Test Users Should:1. Obtain information about the scale used for reporting

scores, the characteristics of any norms or comparisongroup(s), and the limitations of the scores.

2. Interpret scores taking into account any major differ-ences between the norms or comparison groups and theactual test takers. Also take into account any differencesin test administration practices or familiarity with thespecific questions in the test.

3. Avoid using tests for purposes not specifically recom-mended by the test developer unless evidence isobtained to support the intended use.

4. Explain how any passing scores were set and gather evi-dence to support the appropriateness of the scores.


5. Obtain evidence to help show that the test is meeting itsintended purpose(s).

C. Striving for FairnessTest developers should strive to make tests that are as fair aspossible for test takers of different races, gender, ethnicbackgrounds, or handicapping conditions.

Test Developers Should:1. Review and revise test questions and related materials to

avoid potentially insensitive content or language.2. Investigate the performance of test takers of different

races, gender, and ethnic backgrounds when samples ofsufficient size are available. Enact procedures that helpto ensure that differences in performance are related pri-marily to the skills under assessment rather than to irrel-evant factors.

3. When feasible, make appropriately modified forms oftests or administration procedures available for test tak-ers with handicapping conditions. Warn test users ofpotential problems in using standard norms with modi-fied tests or administration procedures that result innon-comparable scores.

Test users should select tests that have been developedin ways that attempt to make them as fair as possible for testtakers of different races, gender, ethnic backgrounds, orhandicapping conditions.

Test Users Should:1. Evaluate the procedures used by test developers to

avoid potentially insensitive content or language.

188 Appendix A

2. Review the performance of test takers or different races,gender, and ethnic backgrounds when samples of suffi-cient size are available.Evaluate the extent to which per-formance differences may have been caused by inap-propriate characteristics of the test.

3. When necessary and feasible, use appropriately modi-fied forms of tests or administration procedures for testtakers with handicapping conditions. Interpret standardnorms with care in the light of the modifications thatwere made.

D. Informing Test TakersUnder some circumstances, test developers have direct com-munication with test takers. Under other circumstances, testusers communicate directly with test takers. Whichevergroup communicates directly with test takers should pro-vide the information described below.

Test Developers or Test Users Should:1. When a test is optional, provide test takers or their par-

ents/guardians with information to help them judgewhether the test should be taken, or if an available alter-native to the test should be used.

2. Provide test takers the information they need to befamiliar with the coverage of the test, the types of ques-tion formats, the directions, and appropriate test-takingstrategies. Strive to make such information equally avail-able to all test takers.

Under some circumstances, test developers have directcontrol of tests and test scores. Under other circumstances,test users have such control. Whichever group has direct


control of tests and test scores should take the stepsdescribed below.

Test Developers or Test Users Should:1. Provide test takers or their parents/guardians with infor-

mation about rights test takers may have to obtaincopies of tests and completed answer sheets, retaketests, have tests rescored, or cancel scores.

2. Tell test takers or their parents/guardians how longscores will be kept on file and indicate to whom andunder what circumstances test scores will or will not bereleased.

3. Describe the procedures that test takers or their par-ents/guardians may use to register complaints and haveproblems resolved.

The Code has been developed by the Joint Committeeof Testing Practices, a cooperative effort of several profes-sional organizations, that has as its aim the advancement, inthe public interest, of the quality of testing practices. TheJoint Committee was initiated by the American EducationalResearch Association (AERA), the American PsychologicalAssociation (APA), and the National Council on Measure-ment in Education (NCME). In addition to these threegroups, the American Association for Counseling andDevelopment/Association for Measurement and Evaluationin Counseling and Development, and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association are now also sponsors of theJoint Committee.

This document is not copyrighted material.Reproduction and dissemination are encouraged.Please cite this document as follows:

Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education. (1988)Washington, DC: Joint Committee on Testing Practices.

190 Appendix A

(Mailing Address: Joint Committee on Testing Practices,American Psychological Association, 750 First Street, NE,Washington, DC 20002-4242.)

Note: The membership of the Working Group that devel-oped the Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education and ofthe Joint Committee on Testing Practices that guided theWorking Group was as follows:

Theodore P. BartellJohn R. BerganEsther E. DiamondRichard P. DuranLorraine D. Eyde Raymond D. FowlerJohn D. Fremer (Co-Chair, JCTP and Chair, Code Working

Group)Edmund W. Gordon Jo-Ida C. Hansen James B. Lingwall George F. Madaus (Co-Chair, JCTP)Kevin L. MorelandJo-Ellen V. Perez Robert J. SolomonJohn T. Stewart Carol Kehr Tittle (Co-chair, JCTP) Nicholas A.VaccMichael J. ZiekyAPA Staff Liaison: Debra BoltasAPA Staff Liaison: Wayne Camara



A P P E N D I X

Psychometric StatisticsPrimer

In Chapter 3, you learned some of the important statisticalconcepts you need to interpret your child’s standardized

test scores.This appendix will provide a deeper, more com-prehensive understanding of the statistics involved in testing.

A Coin-Toss ExerciseIn Chapter 3, Figure 3-1 showed a graph of the number ofheads that students obtained when they tossed sets of 10 pen-nies 1000 times. This graph is from an actual exercise theauthor used with his students.We will use this exercise to pre-sent a more in-depth primer of basic psychometric statistics.

The author agreed to teach a course in psychologicaland educational testing for a small liberal arts college twodays before the winter term began. Since this was the firsttime he had taught the course to students who were notdoctoral candidates in psychology, he wanted an idea of

B

193


how many of the students understood the statistical con-cepts they would need to complete the course. He adminis-tered a pretest and learned that almost none of them knewany of the necessary concepts. He then devised an exerciseto help teach them these necessary concepts in a simpleway.

There were 25 students in the class.The author went tothe bank and obtained $2.50 in pennies,10 for each student.He had the students push their chairs against the wall andsit on the floor to complete the exercise.He handed out datacollection sheets, each of which was marked with the num-ber of possible heads, 0−10.Then the students tossed their10 pennies and recorded the number of heads. They eachrepeated this exercise 39 more times in order to produceresults of 1000 trials. The instructor collected the tallysheets, entered the individual results into a statistical analy-sis program, and reported the group’s results.

From Table to Graph

Table B-1 shows the number of times that students obtainedpossible numbers of heads.Using the data from the table, theauthor was able to make a bar graph, shown in Figure B-1,depicting the number of times each number of headsoccurred.

From this graph, we can draw a few tentative conclu-sions. (Psychologists and statisticians call this practice ofdrawing a few “quick and dirty”conclusions from the graph-ical representation of the results “eyeballing.”) Just from eye-balling, we can see that there were more scores in the mid-dle of the range than at the two extremes. In fact, the fartherwe go from the midpoint of the range, the fewer scores weobtained.

194 Appendix B

Psychometric Statistics Primer 195

300

250

200

150

100

50

0

Tria

ls

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Heads

Figure B-1 Creating a bar graph from statistics of heads in tencoin-toss trials.

Table B-1 Ten Coin-Toss Trials

Number Numberof of

Heads Trials

0 01 92 343 1004 1885 2506 2277 1178 639 10

10 2

The Normal, or “Bell,” Curve

Now let’s change the graph a bit. Instead of bars for eachnumber of heads, let’s put a dot at the height correspondingto the number of times each number of heads occurred. Andlet’s connect the dots. If we do that,we obtain the line graphshown in Figure B-2.

We see that the curve in Figure B-2 is beginning to takeshape.There is a statistical procedure called smoothing thatsmoothes out some of the sharp angles in graphs like this.Don’t worry about the exact procedure.Think of it this way:Imagine that the graph in Figure B-2 is made by connectingthe dots with fine thread. Now imagine that we connect thedots with a garden hose that won’t bend as easily into sharpangles. The resulting curve is shown in Figure B-3. Statisti-cians call this a normal curve, but educators and the mediafrequently refer to this as a bell curve because of its resem-blance to the shape of a bell.We obtain bell curves when welook at many traits such as shoe size, IQ,reading scores,num-ber of suicidal thoughts, etc.

196 Appendix B

300

250

200

150

100

50

0

Tria

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0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Heads

Figure B-2 Creating a line graph from statistics of heads in tencoin-toss trials.

Statisticians have determined some characteristics of thebell curve that are important to us when we test. In fact,most psychological and educational tests are constructedusing the bell curve as a model.

Range

The first thing we need to know about scores is the range.Since it was only possible to obtain 0 to 10 heads in eachtrial, we would think that the range of actual scores wouldbe 0−10. Actually, though, if we look at the scores in Table B-1 (at the beginning of this appendix), we see that therewere no trials in which there were zero heads. So the rangeof actual scores is 1−10.


300

250

200

150

100

50

0

Tria

ls

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10Heads

Figure B-3 Smoothing the line graph in Figure B-2 produces anormal, or bell, curve.

Median

The median is the midpoint among scores.That is the pointthat separates the upper half of the scores from the lowerhalf. We simply rank the scores we obtain from lowest tohighest, and the middle score becomes the median. Fromeyeballing the graph, it appears as if the median is 5,and thatis correct.

Mode

The mode is the score that occurs most frequently. Again,from looking at the graph, we see that the most frequentscore, the mode, is 5.

Mean

The mean is simply the average.Theoretically, if the scoresmake a normal, or bell, curve, the mean, median, and modeshould be the same. And sure enough, if we calculate theaverage number of heads, we obtain 5.174, which is veryclose. In the normal curve, the mean, or average, is the pointof the curve that is in the exact middle, which is what wesee in the graph of scores in Figure B-3.

Once we know the range and the mean, we knowwhether any score is above average, below average, or aver-age.We don’t yet know just how much above or below aver-age a score may be, but knowing the mean does begin tohelp us understand scores. Think of poor Tom who wasthrilled when he read that he had made a 92 on the midtermcalculus exam. He automatically assumed that the range was0−100 and that the mean would be quite a bit lower than 92.But when he learned that the range was 0−250 and the aver-age was 165, the 92 did not look so good.

198 Appendix B

Standard Deviation

Even when we know the range and the mean of the scores,we only know that a score is average, below average, orabove average. We don’t know how much above or belowaverage a score may be. Suppose that Linda’s parents knowthat she has taken a test with a mean of 500 and hasobtained a score of 600. Is that good? We know that it isabove the average score, but we cannot say anything morethan that until we have more information.

Now we need to know how much the scores vary.Thatis, for example, are they bunched up near the average, or arethey spread out across the range?

We need to know the typical amount by which people’sscores deviate from the mean.You might think that all wewould have to do would be to record each deviationscore—that is, how much each score differs from the mean.If the mean is 500 and Linda’s score is 600, then she deviatesby +100 points. On the other hand, if Robert’s score is 400,he deviates by −100 points. The problem with taking theaverage of the deviations from the mean is that, theoretical-ly, they should add up to zero! So we need a way to take intoaccount how far the scores are from the mean withoutregard to whether they are above or below the mean. Sostatisticians decided to begin by using squared deviationsfrom the mean. (Remember that −7 squared, for example, is49, as is +7 squared, so squaring the scores solves the prob-lem of the scores adding up to zero.)

We begin by determining each deviation score, squaringit, and adding all the squared deviations.We then divide thesum of the squared deviations by the number of scores wehad. In our coin-toss example, that resulted in an averagesquared deviation of 2.48. But since we are dealing withsquared deviations,we must go one step further and take the


square root of this number, which, in this case, is approxi-mately 1.58. (We have rounded a lot here, so the numbers arenot precise.) We refer to 1.58 as the standard deviation.

Once we know the standard deviation, we can under-stand just how meaningful each score is. For example, weknow that if the test that Linda and Robert took has a meanof 500 and a standard deviation of 100, then Linda’s score isone standard deviation above the mean, while Robert’s isone standard deviation below the mean.Actually,statisticianscan construct the normal curve for any group of scores oncethey know the scores’ mean and standard deviation.

Percentiles

Now that we know that the mean number of heads in ourcoin-toss exercise is 5.174 and the standard deviation is1.58, we can determine just how unusual each number ofheads is. Suppose, for example, that Caroline tosses her 10pennies and has 3 heads. How unusual is that?

Let’s look at Table B-2.This is the same as Table B-1, butwith two additional columns.The third and fourth columnsare new. In the column labeled “Cumulative Count,” we seethe number at or below each number of heads.For example,we see that, of the 1000 trials, there were 3 or fewer headsin 143 of the trials. Now look at the fourth column, labeled“Cumulative Percent.” The fourth column tells us the per-centage of scores at or below that number of heads.That fig-ure is simply the result of dividing the number in the“Cumulative Count” column by the total number of trials(1000) and multiplying the result by 100. Since Caroline isinterested in how unusual 3 heads is, she looks at the tableand sees that 14.3 percent of the time, students obtained 3or fewer heads. So 3 heads is a bit unusual.

200 Appendix B

Table B-2 Ten Coin-Toss Trials ScoredNumber Number

of of Cumulative CumulativeHeads Trials Count Percent

0 0 0 01 9 9 0.92 34 43 4.33 100 143 14.34 188 331 33.15 250 581 58.16 227 808 80.87 117 925 92.58 63 988 98.89 10 998 99.8

10 2 1000 100

You will see scores on your child’s test score report thatrefer to “percentiles,”“cumulative percentiles,”“national per-centiles,” or some other term with the word percentile in it.Interpret those scores the same as we do the numbers in thefourth column. A percentile of 43, for example, means that43 percent of individuals are expected to make scores equalto or lower than a particular score. Chapter 3 gives a table(Table 3-1) for interpreting percentiles. The advantage ofusing percentiles is that we can compare scores on differenttests, even if they have different means and standard devia-tions, as long as we know the percentiles.

Reliability and Validity

We are not quite finished with statistics just yet.There aretwo additional concepts that you need to consider whenyou interpret your child’s scores: the test’s reliability andvalidity. But before we can explain these two concepts indetail, you need to know something about correlation.


Correlation is a statistical procedure that determineshow a value of one thing corresponds to a value of anotherthing. For example, there is a relationship between one’sheight and weight, another between the speed at which onedrives and the miles per gallon expended, and yet anotherbetween the number of hours students study and their finalgrades.

Let’s look at the fictitious example shown in Figure B-4,in which a researcher is interested in the relationshipbetween the number of hours that students watch educa-tional television programming and their scores on a readingtest. Of course, this is a made-up example: We rarely findsuch perfect relationships in the real world. But it helps ussee what happens when there is a very strong relationship.In this example, the more hours students watched educa-tional TV programming, the higher their scores were on thereading test.When we see that an increase in one thing cor-responds to an increase in the other, we say that the twothings have a positive correlation. A correlation of +1.0 rep-resents a perfect positive correlation.

202 Appendix B

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Rea

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Sco

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0 2 4 6 8 10ETV Viewing Hours

Figure B-4 This graph shows a perfect positive correlationbetween reading scores and educational TV viewing.

Now let’s look at Figure B-5, another fictitious example inwhich we examine the relationship between the number ofhours that students watch prime-time sitcoms and students’reading scores. This time, there is a negative relationshipbetween the two numbers: The more hours that studentswatch sitcoms, the lower their scores on the reading test.When an increase in one thing corresponds to a decrease inanother, we say that the two things have a negative correla-tion.A score of −1.0 represents a perfect negative correlation.

Now let’s look at a third fictitious example, shown inFigure B-6. Suppose that researchers are interested in therelationship between the distance students can kick a soc-cer ball and their scores on the reading test. This time, theredoes not appear to be any relationship between these twonumbers. (In fact, the author made up these data by havingMicrosoft Excel generate random numbers; a correlationanalysis indicated that there is no relationship betweenthem.) When we have two variables in which an increase inone has no effect on the other, we say that there is no (orzero) correlation.We represent this correlation as 0.0.


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0 2 4 6 8 10 12Hours Watching Sitcoms

Figure B-5 This graph shows a perfect negative correlationbetween reading scores and hours viewing sitcoms.

So from these examples, we see that correlations canrange from −1.0 (perfect negative correlation) to 0.0 (nocorrelation) to +1.0 (perfect positive correlation).We won’tget into the exact way to calculate these numbers, but theseconcepts are important in understanding reliability andvalidity.

Reliability. Reliability refers to the consistency withwhich we measure something. Suppose that Ross and Karaare laying out a vegetable garden.They know that they haveenough seeds for a garden 20 feet wide and 30 feet long.They can measure the distances either by estimating themor by using a tape measure. Of course, they will obtain moreconsistent measurements using the tape measure than ifthey simply estimate them, so we say that the tape measureis a more reliable measure of length than estimation.

In testing,we need to know a test’s reliability,or the con-sistency with which it measures whatever it measures.Withreliability, we aren’t interested in whether, for example, thetest is really measuring reading but, instead, whether we cantrust that the scores are consistent. In other words, does achild’s score one day predict her scores another day?

204 Appendix B

120

100

80

68

40

20

0

Rea

ding

0 10 20 30 40 50 60Distance

Figure B-6 This graph shows zero correlation between readingand kicking distance.

We express reliability from 0.0 (no reliability) to +1.0(perfect reliability). In practice, we almost never see perfectreliability. The most technically sound tests typically havereliabilities of 0.9 or above, but it is not uncommon to seetests with much lower reliability.

There are several types of reliability that test manufac-turers study, each giving a different estimate of how consis-tent the scores are. Split-half reliability refers to the corre-lation between scores on one-half of the items of a test andscores on the other half of the items. For example, we mightcorrelate scores on the odd-numbered questions with thescores on the even-numbered items. Or with a test of, say,100 items,we might correlate the scores on items 1−50 withthose on items 51−100.

Test-retest reliability refers to the correlation between aperson’s scores on two administrations of the test.For exam-ple,T. J.might take a reading test today and then again in twoweeks.The major problem with test-retest reliability is thepractice effect, the effect that taking the test previously hason students’ scores when the students take the test again. Sotest-retest reliability tells us how consistent a student’sscores are,but only when the students have taken the test atleast twice.

Alternate-form reliability tells us how strongly relatedtwo or more forms of a test are.You might notice on yourchild’s test score reports that he took a form of the test,such as Form A or Form 2.Test publishers frequently con-struct more than one form of a test so that students cantake the test more than once without having to repeat thesame items, that is, without the practice effect. Usually, theforms of a test are very strongly related: Individuals’ scoreson Form A, for example, strongly predict their scores onForm B.


The Kuder-Richardson reliability procedure is a com-plex statistical procedure for gauging the consistencyamong scores on test items when students only take oneform of a test and take it only once.This procedure is moreintricate than the other forms of reliability determination,but the introduction of desktop computers in the 1980smade it much easier for test construction teams to make thenecessary analyses using sophisticated statistical software.

Inter-scorer reliability is a particularly important con-sideration with subjectively scored test items that areincreasingly showing up on standardized tests.Anyone whohas ever taught a class at any level has had to deal with stu-dents challenging their scoring on short-answer and essayquestions, term papers, and projects.“You gave me a lowergrade because I am (black, white, male, female, left-handed,Democrat, vegetarian)” is known in academic circles as the“student’s lament.”But it is true that one individual will varyin his scoring and that one individual will score more or lessstrictly than another. So test publishers are particularly inter-ested in how consistent scores are among different scorers.All test publishers conduct extensive training of those whowill score subjectively scored items to try to increase thatconsistency.

Standard Error of Measurement. From reliability, we canobtain another crucial statistic, the standard error of mea-surement (SEm).Think of the SEm as an estimate of the stan-dard deviation of an individual’s scores if the individualcould take the test multiple times. It simply gives an idea ofhow reliable any particular score is.When we see scores rep-resented as bands, as we did in the score reports in Chapter3, those bands were constructed using SEm. For example, ifwe wish to express a score in the range in which we would

206 Appendix B

expect it to fall 95 percent of the time, we would expressthat range as the score plus or minus 1.96 times the SEm.(For reasons that are beyond the scope of this book, 95 per-cent of the scores on a normal curve fall between +1.96 and−1.96 standard deviations.)

Factors That Affect Reliability. Many factors affect a test’s relia-bility. One of the strongest factors that those constructingand norming tests can control is number of scores.All otherfactors being equal, a test with more items will be more reli-able than a test with fewer items. Norming informationobtained from a larger number of individuals will be morereliable than that obtained from fewer individuals.

But other factors can affect test reliability.Poorly writtentest administration instructions, for example, may leavethose giving the tests confused regarding what is and is notallowed,which may result in some classrooms following oneprocedure (such as allowing calculators) and others follow-ing another (such as not allowing them). Cheaply producedtest booklets may have such faint print that students confuseanswers because they cannot read test questions. Failure tospecify how much of each test may be administered in onesitting may result in one school’s administering the entiretest in one sitting and another’s breaking the testing up intomultiple sessions.

Validity. In contrast to reliability, which tells us how con-sistently we measure something, validity tells us how accu-rately we measure what we are trying to measure.For exam-ple, if we have a test of math calculation skills, are we actu-ally measuring math calculation skills, or are we measuringsomething else? A math test with a difficult reading levelmay result in scores that are more closely related to stu-dents’ reading levels than their math abilities. Or perhaps a


school district places students into reading classes on thebasis of their scores on a reading test that does not really dif-ferentiate students at different levels of reading ability.

Note that a test can be very reliable without being at allvalid, but it cannot be valid unless it is also reliable.

We gauge validity several ways.The one way that we canreadily quantify is concurrent validity, in which we corre-late individuals’ scores on one test with their scores onanother test. For example, if we develop a new test ofspelling, we would give individuals our new test and alsogive them an established spelling test, such as the spellingsubtest from the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test. Weexpress concurrent validity as a score in the same 0.0 to+1.0 range in which we express reliability. It is not unusualfor test publishers to obtain concurrent validity estimatesbetween their new test and several other, similar tests.

Content validity is not as easily quantified as concurrentvalidity. Content validity refers to the degree to which a testincludes an adequate representation of the skills the testpurports to measure. For example, if we develop a test ofmathematics computation skills of middle schoolers, wewould expect the test to include content from the array ofskills that middle schoolers have usually mastered.We wouldwant to make sure, for example, that we included items thatassess the ability to add, subtract,multiply, and divide as wellas concepts such as borrowing and carrying, computingresults of operations involving one, two,and three digits,andunderstanding how to compute when faced with differentnotations.Test publishers form teams of educators and testdevelopers to study the academic skills involved in each skilltested.They typically examine other tests, curriculum goals,and task analyses and will attempt to ensure that test itemssample the pertinent skills.

208 Appendix B

Criterion-related validity refers to the degree to whichindividuals’ scores on a test accurately predict the ability ofthose individuals to perform the skills the test purports tomeasure.A reading test, for example, that does not actuallypredict how well an individual can read has poor criterion-related validity. Criterion-related validity has actually beenthrough the courts. In decades past, individuals applying forjobs or for promotions would often compete by taking teststhat employers assumed related to the ability to perform therequired duties for the positions but for which they couldnot demonstrate any relationship. Individuals who werepassed over for promotions or who were not hired for jobson the basis of their test scores began to litigate employersfor this practice.The courts based their decisions on a sim-ple question: Does the score on the test actually tell theemployer whether the applicant can do the job? If employ-ers could not produce the necessary evidence, they wererequired to abandon their tests. It is possible to quantify cri-terion-related validity, although the comparisons betweentest scores and the criteria are less straightforward than withconcurrent forms reliability. With criterion-related validity,we must be able to produce some quantified indication ofhow people perform the necessary skills. For example, if thetest is supposed to measure the individual’s ability to speakEnglish as a second language, we might gauge the person’ssuccess at ordering a meal at a fast-food restaurant, applyingfor a driver’s license, or carrying on a conversation inEnglish. If a test is supposed to tell a potential employerwhether the potential employee has the manual dexterity toassemble radios, then the employer must be able to showthat scores on the test actually relate to how well they dis-criminate between those who can and who cannot learn toassemble radios.


We use the term construct validity to refer to the degreeto which a test measures a theoretical construct or trait suchas intelligence, mechanical comprehension, freedom fromdistractibility, sustained attention,and the like.That is,we areseeking to determine how the test measures broader, moreenduring, and more abstract traits. Constructs do notdescribe those things that exist in a real sense, such asheight, weight, or blood alcohol levels. Rather, they refer tofictions we create to describe highly abstract, theoreticalphenomena. Because of the abstract, theoretical nature ofthe traits we are trying to measure, there is often controver-sy in how we measure them. For example, when we try tomeasure intelligence, we must first take a position on whatconstitutes intelligence. If we use David Wechsler’s defini-tion of intelligence, for instance, we will assess the individu-al’s ability to perform a wide range of tasks related to verbalversus nonverbal skills. If we adopt Jean Piaget’s theory ofintelligence, we will look at the qualitative characteristics ofchildren’s reasoning, such as whether the individual under-stands that the amount of a liquid, for example, remains thesame whether we pour it into a tall, slender container or ashort, fat container.We often find that there are many com-peting definitions for the constructs and traits we are tryingto measure, and each way we define each determines howwe measure it.

SummaryThis appendix has discussed the basic statistical conceptsinvolved in psychological and educational testing that welightly touched on in Chapter 3. It dealt with some crucialstatistical concepts related to the normal, or bell, curve,including range, median, mode, mean, percentile, and stan-

210 Appendix B

dard deviation. It used concepts from statistical correlationto introduce the statistical concepts of reliability (or theconsistency with which we measure something) and validi-ty (or the extent to which we actually measure what we arepurporting to measure).



A P P E N D I X

State EducationDepartmentWeb Sites

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STATE GENERAL WEB SITE STATE TESTING WEB SITE

Alabama http://www.alsde.edu/ http://www.fairtest.org/states/al.htm

Alaska www.educ.state.ak.us/ http://www.educ.state.ak.us/

Arizona http://www.ade.state.az.us/ http://www.ade.state.az.us/standards/

Arkansas http://arkedu.k12.ar.us/ http://www.fairtest.org/states/ar.htm

California http://goldmine.cde.ca.gov/ http://star.cde.ca.gov/

Colorado http://www.cde.state.co.us/index_home.htm http://www.cde.state.co.us/index_assess.htm

Connecticut http://www.state.ct.us/sde/ http://www.state.ct.us/sde/cmt/index.htm

Delaware http://www.doe.state.de.us/ http://www.doe.state.de.us/aab/index.htm

District of Columbia http://www.k12.dc.us/dcps/home.html http://www.k12.dc.us/dcps/data/data_frame2.html

Florida http://www.firn.edu/doe/ http://www.firn.edu/doe/sas/sasshome.htm

214


Georgia http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/ http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/sla/ret/recotest.html

Hawaii http://kalama.doe.hawaii.edu/upena/ http://www.fairtest.org/states/hi.htm

Idaho http://www.sde.state.id.us/Dept/ http://www.sde.state.id.us/instruct/schoolaccount/statetesting.htm

Illinois http://www.isbe.state.il.us/ http://www.isbe.state.il.us/isat/

Indiana http://doe.state.in.us/ http://doe.state.in.us/assessment/welcome.html

Iowa http://www.state.ia.us/educate/index.html (Tests Chosen Locally)

Kansas http://www.ksbe.state.ks.us/ http://www.ksbe.state.ks.us/assessment/

Kentucky htp://www.kde.state.ky.us/ http://www.kde.state.ky.us/oaa/

Louisiana http://www.doe.state.la.us/DOE/asps/home.asp http://www.doe.state.la.us/DOE/asps/home.asp?I=HISTAKES

Maine http://janus.state.me.us/education/homepage.htm http://janus.state.me.us/education/mea/meacompass.htm

215


Maryland http://www.msde.state.md.us/ http://msp.msde.state.md.us/

Massachusetts http://www.doe.mass.edu/ http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/

Michigan http://www.mde.state.mi.us/ http://www.MeritAward.state.mi.us/merit/meap/index.htm

Minnesota http://www.educ.state.mn.us/ http://fairtest.org/states/mn.htm

Mississippi http://mdek12.state.ms.us/ http://fairtest.org/states/ms.htm

Missouri http://services.dese.state.mo.us/ http://fairtest.org/states/mo.htm

Montana http://www.metnet.state.mt.us/ http://fairtest.org/states/mt.htm

Nebraska http://www.nde.state.ne.us/ http://www.edneb.org/IPS/AppAccrd/ApprAccrd.html

Nevada http://www.nde.state.nv.us/ http://www.nsn.k12.nv.us/nvdoe/reports/TerraNova.doc

New Hampshire http://www.state.nh.us/doe/ http://www.state.nh.us/doe/Assessment/assessme(NHEIAP).htm

216


New Jersey http://www.state.nj.us/education/ http://www.state.nj.us/njded/stass/index.html

New Mexico http://sde.state.nm.us/ http://sde.state.nm.us/press/august30a.html

New York http://www.nysed.gov/ http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/ciai/assess.html

North Carolina http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/ http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/accountability/reporting/index.html

North Dakota http://www.dpi.state.nd.us/dpi/index.htm http://www.dpi.state.nd.us/dpi/reports/assess/assess.htm

Ohio http://www.ode.state.oh.us/ http://www.ode.state.oh.us/ca/

Oklahoma http://sde.state.ok.us/ http://sde.state.ok.us/acrob/testpack.pdf

Oregon http://www.ode.state.or.us// http://www.ode.state.or.us//asmt/index.htm

Pennsylvania http://www.pde.psu.edu/ http://www.fairtest.org/states/pa.htm

Rhode Island http://www.ridoe.net/ http://www.ridoe.net/standards/default.htm

217


South Carolina http://www.state.sc.us/sde/ http://www.state.sc.us/sde/reports/terranov.htm

South Dakota http://www.state.sd.us/state/executive/deca/ http://www.state.sd.us/state/executive/deca/TA/McRelReport/McRelReports.htm

Tennessee http://www.state.tn.us/education/ http://www.state.tn.us/education/tsintro.htm

Texas http://www.tea.state.tx.us/ http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/

Utah http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/ http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/eval/usoeeval.htm

Vermont http://www.state.vt.us/educ/ http://www.fairtest.org/states/vt.htm

Virginia http://www.pen.k12.va.us/Anthology/VDOE/ http://www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/Assessment/home.shtml

Washington http://www.k12.wa.us/ http://www.k12.wa.us/assessment/

West Virginia http://wvde.state.wv.us/ http://wvde.state.wv.us/

Wisconsin http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/ http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/dpi/dltcl/eis/achfacts.html

Wyoming http://www.k12.wy.us/wdehome.html http://www.asme.com/wycas/index.htm

218

A P P E N D I X

Web Sites andResources for More

Information

Homework

Homework Centralhttp://www.HomeworkCentral.comTerrific site for students, parents, and teachers, filled withinformation, projects, and more.

Win the Homework Wars(Sylvan Learning Centers)http://www.educate.com/online/qa_peters.html

Reading and Grammar Help

Born to Read: How to Raise a Readerhttp://www.ala.org/alsc/raise_a_reader.html

D

219


Guide to Grammar and Writinghttp://webster.commnet.edu/hp/pages/darling/grammar.htmHelp with “plague words and phrases,” grammar FAQs,sentence parts, punctuation, rules for common usage.

Internet Public Library: Reading Zonehttp://www.ipl.org/cgi-bin/youth/youth.out

Keeping Kids Reading and Writinghttp://www.tiac.net/users/maryl/

U.S. Dept. of Education: Helping Your Child Learnto Readhttp://www.ed.gov/pubs/parents/Reading/index.html

Math Help

Center for Advancement of Learninghttp://www.muskingum.edu/%7Ecal/database/Math2.htmlSubstitution and memory strategies for math.

Center for Advancement of Learninghttp://www.muskingum.edu/%7Ecal/database/Math1.htmlGeneral tips and suggestions.

Math.comhttp://www.math.comThe world of math online.

Math.comhttp://www.math.com/student/testprep.htmlGet ready for standardized tests.

Math.com: Homework Help in Mathhttp://www.math.com/students/homework.html

220 Appendix D

Math.com: Math for Homeschoolershttp://www.math.com/parents/homeschool.html

The Math Forum: Problems and Puzzleshttp://forum.swarthmore.edu/library/resource_types/problems_puzzlesLots of fun math puzzles and problems for grades K–12.

The Math Forum: Math Tips and Trickshttp://forum.swarthmore.edu/k12/mathtips/mathtips.html

Tips on Testing

Standardized Testshttp://arc.missouri.edu/k12/K through 12 assessment—tools and know-how.

Parents: Testing in Schools

Code of Fair Testing Practices in Educationhttp:www.hbem.com/home/fairtest.htm

KidSource: Talking to Your Child’s Teacher aboutStandardized Testshttp://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/talking.assessment.k12.4.html

National Center for Fair and Open Testing, Inc.(FairTest)342 BroadwayCambridge, MA 02139(617) 864-4810http://www.fairtest.org

National Parent Information Networkhttp://npin.org

Web Sites and Resources for More Information 221

Overview of States Assessment Programshttp://ericae.net/faqs/

Parent Soup Education Central: StandardizedTests http://www.parentsoup.com/edcentral/testing

The Rights and Responsibilities of Test-Takershttp://www.ipmaac.org/files/ttr0997.htm

General Information on Testing

Academic Center for Excellencehttp://www.acekids.com

American Association for Higher EducationAssessmenthttp://www.aahe.org/assessment/web.htm

American Federation of Teachers555 New Jersey Avenue, NWWashington, DC 20011

Association of Test Publishers Member Productsand Serviceshttp://www.testpublishers.org/memserv.htm

Education Week on the Webhttp://www.edweek.org

ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and EvaluationThe Catholic University of America210 O’Boyle HallWashington, DC 20064(202) 319-5120e-mail: [email protected]://ericae.net/.faqs/

222 Appendix D

FairTest: The National Center for Fair & OpenTestinghttp://fairtest.org/facts/ntfact.htm

National Congress of Parents and Teachers700 North Rush StreetChicago, Illinois 60611

National Education Association1201 16th Street, NWWashington, DC 20036

U.S. Department of Educationhttp://www.ed.gov/

Test Publishers Online

ACT: Information for Life’s Transitions http://www.act.org

American Guidance Service, Inc.http://www.agsnet.com

Ballard & Tighe Publishers http://www.ballard-tighe.com

Consulting Psychologists Press http://www.cpp-db.com

CTB McGraw-Hill http://www.ctb.com

Educational Records Bureau http://www.erb-test.com

Educational Testing Service http://www.ets.org


General Educational Development (GED) TestingServicehttp://www.acenet.edu/programs/CALEC/Out_Info_Pubs/GED_facts.html

Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement http://www.hbem.com

Piney Mountain Press—A Cyber-Center for Careerand Applied Learning http://www.pineymountain.com

ProEd Publishing http://www.proedinc.com

Riverside Publishing Company http://www.hmco.com/hmco/riverside

Stoelting Co.http://www.stoeltingco.com

Sylvan Learning Systems, Inc.http://www.educate.com

Touchstone Applied Science Associates, Inc. (TASA) http://www.tasa.com

Tests Online

(Note: We don’t endorse tests; some may not have techni-cal documentation. Evaluate the quality of these testingprograms before making any decisions based on theiruse.)

Edutest, Inc.http://www.edutest.comEdutest is an Internet-accessible testing service thatoffers criterion-referenced tests for elementary school stu-dents, based upon the standards for K–12 learning and

224 Appendix D

achievement of the states of Virginia, California, andFlorida.

Virtual Knowledgehttp://www.virtent.comThis commercial service, which enjoys a formal partner-ship with Sylvan Learning Systems, offers a line of skillsassessments for preschool through grade 9 for use in theclassroom or the home. For its free online sample tests, seeits Virtual Test Center (http://www.virtent.com/testbot-tom.htm).



A P P E N D I X

Read More about It

Academic Preparation

Leonhardt, Mary. 99 Ways to Get Kids to Love Reading and100 Books They’ll Love. New York: Crown, 1997.

———. Parents Who Love Reading, Kids Who Don’t: How ItHappens and What You Can Do about It. New York:Crown, 1995.

McGrath, Barbara B. The Baseball Counting Book.Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge, 1999.

———. More M&M’s Brand Chocolate Candies Math.Watertown, MA: Charlesbridge, 1998.

Mokros, Janice R. Beyond Facts & Flashcards: ExploringMath with Your Kids. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann,1996.

E

227


Schwartz, Eugene M. How to Double Your Child’s Grades inSchool: Build Brilliance and Leadership into YourChild—From Kindergarten to College—in Just 5Minutes a Day. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1999.

Tobia, Sheila. Overcoming Math Anxiety. New York: W. W.Norton & Company, 1995.

Turafello,Ann Hunt. Up Your Grades: Proven Strategies forAcademic Success. Lincolnwood, IL: VGM CareerHorizons, 1996.

Vorderman, Carol. How Math Works. Pleasantville, NY:Reader’s Digest Association, 1996.

Zahler, Kathy A. 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Raise aChild Who Loves to Read. New York: IDG Books, 1997.

Testing

Abbamont, Gary W. Test Smart: Ready-to-Use Test-TakingStrategies and Activities for Grades 5−12. Upper SaddleRiver, NJ: Prentice Hall Direct, 1997.

Cookson, Peter W., and Joshua Halberstam. A Parent’s Guideto Standardized Tests in School: How to Improve YourChild’s Chances for Success. New York: LearningExpress, 1998.

Frank, Steven, and Steven Frank. Test-Taking Secrets: StudyBetter, Test Smarter, and Get Great Grades (TheBackpack Study Series). Holbrook, MA: Adams MediaCorporation, 1998.

Gilbert, Sara Dulaney. How to Do Your Best on Tests: ASurvival Guide. New York: Beech Tree Books, 1998.

228 Appendix E

Gruber, Gary. Dr. Gary Gruber’s Essential Guide to Test-Taking for Kids, Grades 3−5. New York:William Morrow& Co., 1997.

———. Gary Gruber’s Essential Guide to Test-Taking forKids, Grades 6, 7, 8, 9. New York: William Morrow &Co., 1997.

Harris, Joseph. Get Ready! for Standardized Tests: Grade 1(Get Ready! for Standardized Tests Series, series editorCarol A.Turkington). New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

———. Get Ready! for Standardized Tests: Grade 2 (GetReady! for Standardized Tests Series, series editor CarolA.Turkington). New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

———. Get Ready! for Standardized Tests: Grade 4 (GetReady! for Standardized Tests Series, series editor CarolA.Turkington). New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Mersky, Karen. Get Ready! for Standardized Tests: Grade 3(Get Ready! for Standardized Tests Series, series editorCarol A.Turkington). New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Romain, Trevor, and Elizabeth Verdick. True or False? TestsStink! Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing Co., 1999.

Talbot, Leslie E. Get Ready! for Standardized Tests: Grade 5(Get Ready! for Standardized Tests Series, series editorCarol A.Turkington). New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Taylor, Kathe, and Sherry Walton. Children of the Center: AWorkshop Approach to Standardized Test Preparation,K−8. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998.

Vickery, Shirley. Get Ready! for Standardized Tests: Grade 6(Get Ready! for Standardized Tests Series, series editorCarol A.Turkington). New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000.

Read More about It 229


Glossary

Achievement test A type of test that measures what a stu-dent has already learned.

Age equivalent A level of performance on a test that rep-resents the average age at which individuals achieve thatlevel of performance. Age equivalents can provide mislead-ing information and should be interpreted with extremecaution.

Alternate forms Two or more versions of the same test.Test publishers sometimes offer more than one version of atest so they can assess the same skills more than once with-out repeating the same test.This can be valuable if a studentwas unable to complete the first test, for example.

Aptitude Potential for learning a specific skill.

Aptitude test An assessment designed to measure a child’spotential for learning one or more skills.

231


Battery A group of two or more educational or psycho-logical tests.

Cognitive assessment The process of gathering and inter-preting information about an individual’s ability to performmental activities related to the ability to learn and interpretinformation.

Composite Score A testing score that combines two ormore scores.

Confidence Interval The range in which a student’s stan-dardized test score might vary if the test is taken again. Forexample, suppose a child’s score is 25 and the confidenceinterval represented on the report is 20−30. If the childtakes the test again, the score the next time would likely bein the 20−30 range.

Content validity The extent to which a test accuratelyrepresents the content it is designed to cover.

Correlation A way of expressing the relationship betweentwo things, such as score on an achievement test versusreport card average.

Criterion-referenced test A test that compares a student’sperformance against some criterion.For example,a criterion-referenced test of the alphabet might require the child torecite all letters of the alphabet in order and to write all letters in the correct order in both uppercase and lowercase.

Diagnostic test A test used to analyze an individual’sstrengths and weaknesses on some skill. For example, a diag-nostic mathematics test would assess students’ abilities torecognize numerals 0−9, count to 100, add without carrying,subtract without borrowing, and so on.

232 Glossary

Distribution A tabulation of all possible scores on a testshowing each score’s frequency.

Frequency distribution An ordered tabulation of individu-al scores or groups of scores that shows how many peopleobtained each score.

Grade equivalent A score that expresses the estimatedgrade level that a student’s performance on a test repre-sents. For example, if a child’s grade equivalent in readingcomprehension is 6:2, her reading comprehension is at thereading level of the average student in the 2nd month of the6th grade.

Group test A test that a single test administrator can giveto more than one person at a time.

Holistic scoring Subjective scoring of answers to testquestions, based on the judgment of the person performingthe scoring using specific criteria.This is the type of scoringemployed with constructed item responses, such as withshort-answer and essay questions.

Individual test A test that can be given to only one personat a time.

Intelligence General potential,not a sum of what someonehas learned.

Intelligence quotient A student’s score on an intelligencetest.

Intelligence test A test designed to assess a wide array ofthinking and reasoning skills related to the ability to adaptand learn. Intelligence tests assess a much wider range ofabilities than do aptitude tests.

Glossary 233

Mean Average score of a group of scores.

Median The middle score in a group of scores rankedfrom smallest to largest.

Mode The most frequent score in a group of scores.

National percentile Percentile score derived from nation-wide norms.

Norm-referenced tests Tests in which students’ scores arecompared with the scores of individuals in a test group(called the norm group).With norm-referenced tests, it is thescore that matters, not the specific skills mastered.

Normative sample A comparison group of individualswho have taken a test under standard conditions.

Percentile The percentage of a group of scores that fallsbelow a given score.

Raw score A student’s actual score before it is transformedinto a percentile. For example, if a student answers 27 ques-tions correctly and that corresponds to the 39th percentile,27 is the raw score.

Reliability The consistency with which a test measures atrait or characteristic.

Scale An organized set of measurements, all of which mea-sure one trait or characteristic.

Standard deviation A statistical measure used to describethe extent to which scores vary in a group of scores.

Standard error of measurement A statistical measureused to describe the extent to which an individual’s scoresmay vary. The standard error of measurement is expressed asthe individual’s estimated standard deviation of test scores if

234 Glossary

he were able to take the test a theoretically infinite numberof times.

Standardization The process of developing proceduresfor administering, scoring, and interpreting the results oftests.As part of the standardization process, test developerswill administer a test to a large sample of individuals.Through this process, they determine the statistical proper-ties of the test scores.

Test anxiety Anxiety that occurs in test-taking situations.Test anxiety can seriously impair a child’s ability to achieveaccurate scores on a test.

Test-retest reliability An estimation of the amount bywhich a child’s scores would be expected to vary from onetest to the next.

Validity The extent to which a test measures the trait orcharacteristic it is designed to measure.

Glossary 235


Index

237

Accommodations, 102-104(See also Special needs)

Accompanying artwork, 36Accountability movement, 3-5Achievement tests, 164ADHD, 107Advocacy, 84-87

homeschooling, 96, 97IDEA, 113-116Rehabilitation Act, 107-111

Alternate-form reliability, 205Answer sheet savvy, 27, 28Aptitude tests, 163-179

achievement tests, compared,164

CogAT, 178mathematical operations, 176,

177misuses, 166, 167NNAT, 178nonverbal skills, 172-177OLSAT7, 177quantitative questions, 175questions, 168-177scores, 167, 168

test bias, 167verbal skills, 168-171why used, 164-166

Arithmetic questions, 48, 49Artwork, 36Asking questions, 33Attention deficit hyperactivity dis-

order (ADHD), 32, 107Average, 63, 198

Basic mathematics, 48Basic reading skill, 47Bell curve, 61-63, 196, 197Big Four:

ITBS, 143-148METROPOLITAN8, 149-153Stanford Achievement Test

(Stanford9), 155-162TerraNova series, 135-141

Binet,Alfred, 2Books, 227-229Born to Read: How to Raise a

Reader, 219Bubbling-in practice sheet, 27


California Achievement Test (CAT),135-141

Changing test answers, 35, 36Child Study Team, 78-81Classroom skills, 32, 33Code of Fair Testing Practices in

Education, 183-191developing/selecting appropri-

ate tests, 185, 186informing test takers, 189, 190interpreting scores, 187striving for fairness, 188, 189

Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT),178

Cognitive Ability Index, 163Commercial educational services,

97Commercial tutorial services, 83,

84Communication, 51Companion workbooks, 82Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills

(CTBS), 135-141Concurrent validity, 208Construct validity, 210Content validity, 208Cooper, Kenneth, 25Correlation, 202-204Criterion-referenced tests:

additional testing, 57grammar/sentence construc-

tion, 51, 52overview, 5, 6spelling, 50, 51vocabulary, 52written expression, 54

Criterion-related validity, 209CTBS, 135-141

Definitions (glossary), 231-235Disabilities, 105

(See also Special needs)Disappointing test scores, 73-87

advocacy, 84-87Child Study Team, 78-81companion workbooks, 82determine if there is a problem,

75, 76guidance counselor, 77, 78remedial workbooks, 82special education evaluation, 80,

81special education placement, 81teacher, 76, 77, 82tutor, 83, 84

Dispute resolution (see Advocacy)Distractors, 36, 44

Eating habits, 24Educational consultant services,

97Edutest, Inc., 224Emotions, 26Essay questions, 45, 46Exclusion from testing, 103, 112,

116, 117Exercise habits, 25Eyeballing, 194

Following test directions, 34Form M, 144, 145Formal accommodations, 103, 104

Geographical breakdown (seeState-by-state breakdown)

Glossary, 231-235Grade equivalents, 70, 71Grammar questions, 51, 52Grievance process (see Advocacy)Group tests:

aptitude tests, 163-179(See also Aptitude tests)

individual assessment, and, 127-133

238 Index

Group tests (Continued)individual psychological tests,

compared, 128, 129overview, 120, 121right way to use, 124, 125wrong way to use, 125-127

Guidance counselor, 77, 78Guide for Classroom Planning,

160

Handicaps, 80, 111(See also Special needs)

Handkerchief, 34Hearing problems, 32History, 1-3Homeschooling, 89-100

advocacy, 97grievance process, 96how to get testing, 97-100state-by-state testing require-

ments, 90-94where standardized tests

required, 94-97working relationships with

someone at school district,95

Homeschooling association, 99,100

Homework Central, 219

IAP, 105, 106IDEA, 80, 81, 111-116Identify weak skills, 28IEP, 81, 113Individual Accommodation Plan

(IAP), 105, 106Individual assessment based on

group tests, 127-133Individual psychological tests, 128,

129Individualized Education Program

(IEP), 81, 113

Individuals with DisabilitiesEducation Act (IDEA), 80,81, 111-116

Informal accommodations, 102,103

Information booklet, 28Information sources (see

Resources)Inter-scorer reliability, 206Internet Web sites (see Web sites)Interpretation of test reports, 64-

71(See also Statistical concepts)

Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS),143-148

constructed supplement, 148features, 143, 144Form M, 144, 145listening assessments, 148optional assessments, 147, 148performance assessments, 148recommended levels, 145-147student questionnaire, 148writing assessments, 148

Irritable bowel syndrome, 107ITBS, 143-148

(See also Iowa Tests of BasicSkills)

Joint Committee of TestingPractices, 190, 191

KeyLinks:The Connectionbetween Instruction &Assessment, 160, 161

Kuder-Richardson reliability, 206

Language expression, 54Language mechanics, 51Language questions, 51-56Letter-word identification, 47

Index 239

Lexile Student Pathfinder report,153

Listening, 32Listening comprehension ques-

tions, 54-56Local due process hearing, 115, 116Local percentile (LP), 68Local policies, 85Low scores (see Disappointing test

scores)LP, 68

Map, 36, 37Math questions, 48, 49Mathematics calculation, 48, 49Mathematics operations, 48Mathematics reasoning, 49McGraw-Hill Guidelines for Bias-

Free Publishing, 138Mean, 63, 198Median, 198Metropolitan Achievement Tests,

Eighth Edition (METRO-POLITAN8), 149-153

Mistaken scoring, 121Mode, 198Multiple-choice questions, 122-124

(See also Test questions)

NAACP, 87Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test

(NNAT), 178Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test-

Multilevel Form, 160National Center for Fair & Open

Testing, 86National Percentile (NP), 68National percentile range, 68National stanine, 70Negative correlation, 203NNAT, 178No reliability, 205Norm-referenced tests, 5

Normal curve, 196Note taking, 30NP, 68NP range, 68Nutrition, 24

Office for Civil Rights, 110, 111OLSAT97, 156, 157, 177OPI, 71Options, 42, 43Organization skills, 29Otis-Lennon School Abilities Test,

Seventh Edition (OLSAT97),156, 157, 177

Parent information booklet, 28Partial mastery, 65Pencils, 34Percentile, 63, 64, 200, 201Perfect negative correlation, 204Perfect positive correlation, 204Perfect reliability, 205Physical fitness, 25Poor results (see Disappointing

test scores)Positive correlation, 202Practice effect, 205Preparing for the test (see Test

preparedness)Psychometric statistics primer,

193-211(See also Statistical concepts)

Public Law 93-112 (RehabilitationAct), 104-111

Question handling strategies, 35-37Questions, 122-124

(See also Test questions)

Raising test scores, 22(See also Test preparedness)

240 Index

Range, 197Read the entire question, 35Reading, 30, 31Reading comprehension, 47Reading questions, 47, 48Reading specialists, 98Recall questions, 45, 46Receptive vocabulary, 53Recognition questions, 40-44Rehabilitation Act, 104-111Reliability, 204-207Remedial services, 82Resources:

books, 227-229general Web sites, 219-225

(See also Web sites)glossary, 231-235state education department Web

sites, 213-218

SAT9, 155(See also Stanford Achievement

Test)Saturday school, 84Scale score, 70Scandals, 4School Ability Composite, 163School psychologists, 98, 99Science questions, 57, 58SDMT 4, 162SDRT 4, 162SEm, 206, 207Sentence-construction questions,

51, 52Short-answer questions, 45Simon,Theodore, 2Sleep, 23Smoothing, 196Social studies questions, 58, 59Sources of information (see

Resources)Special education evaluation, 80, 81Special education placement, 81Special needs, 101-117

exclusion from testing, 103, 112,116, 117

formal accommodations, 103,104

IDEA, 111-116informal accommodations, 102,

103other factors to consider, 116,

117Rehabilitation Act, 104-111

Spelling questions, 49-51Split-half reliability, 205Standard deviation, 199, 200Standard error of measurement

(SEm), 206, 207Standardized tests:

Big Four (see Big Four)defined, 1exclusion from testing, 103, 112group tests (see Group tests)history, 1-3scandals, 4standards for testing, 119, 120state-by-state breakdown, 7-19types, 5, 6unethical practices, 4, 5uses, 4

Standards for Educational andPsychological Testing, 119,120

Stanford Achievement Test(Stanford9), 155-162

content, 158, 159fairness, 157features, 155, 156general bias, 158OLSAT7, 156, 157related materials, 160-162score reports, 159, 160Spanish-language parallel forms,

160test format/page layout, 157

Stanford Diagnostic MathematicsTest, Fourth Edition (SDMT4), 162

Index 241

Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test,Fourth Edition (SDRT 4),162

State-by-state breakdown:criterion-referenced tests, 8-13exit exams, 8-13grade-by-grade testing, 14-19homeschooling test require-

ments, 90-94norm-referenced tests, 8-13

State education department Websites, 213-218

State policies, 86, 87Statistical concepts, 193-211

bell curve, 61-63, 196, 197correlation, 202-204mean, 63, 198median, 198mode, 198percentile, 63, 64, 200, 201range, 197reliability, 204-207standard deviation, 199, 200validity, 207-210

Stems, 41, 42Strategies for Instruction: A

Handbook of PerformanceActivities, Second Edition,161, 162

Student assistance team, 78Student intervention team, 78Student’s lament, 206Study skills, 29Subject areas, 46-59

grammar/sentence construc-tion, 51, 52

language, 51-56language expression, 54listening comprehension, 54-56math, 48, 49reading, 47, 48science, 57, 58social studies, 58, 59spelling, 49-51

vocabulary, 52, 53written expression, 54

Superficiality, 122-124Sylvan Learning Centers, 83, 97

Take the test seriously, 34, 35Taking notes, 30Teacher, 76, 77, 82, 98Terminology (glossary), 231-235TerraNova series, 135-141

bias reduction, 137, 138Classroom Connections materi-

als, 137complete battery, 139content, 139-141custom module, 141decision-making tools, 137features, 136multiple assessments module,

140survey module, 140, 141test validity, 139

Test anxiety, 26Test morning, 33, 34Test preparedness, 21-37

answer sheet savvy, 27, 28changing test answers, 35, 36classroom skills, 32, 33eating habits, 24emotions, 26identify weak skills, 28physical fitness, 25question handling strategies, 36,

37read the entire question, 35reading, 30, 31sleep, 23study skills, 29take the test seriously, 34, 35taking notes, 30test morning, 33, 34test-taking strategies, 34-37tricks/gimmicks, 22

242 Index

Test publishers, 223, 224Test questions, 39-59

aptitude tests, 168-177essay questions, 45, 46language, 51-56limitations on what can be test-

ed, 122math, 48, 49mistakes in scoring, 121reading, 47, 48recall questions, 45, 46recognition questions, 40-44science, 57, 58short-answer questions, 45social studies, 58, 59spelling, 49-51subject areas, 46-59superficiality, 122-124types of, 40-46

Test reports, 64-71(See also Statistical concepts)

Test response patterns, 22Test-retest reliability, 205Test-taking strategies, 34-37Testing history, 1-3Testing scandals, 4Tissues, 34Tutor, 83, 84Tutorial reading program, 82

Unethical practices, 4, 5

Validity, 207-210Virtual Knowledge, 225Vocabulary questions, 52, 53

Watch, 34Web sites, 219-225

general information on testing,222, 223

homework, 219math help, 220, 221parents, 221, 222reading/grammar help, 219, 220state education departments,

213-218test publishers, 223, 224tests, 224, 225tips on testing, 221

Win the Homework Wars, 219Word recognition, 47Written expression, 54www.familyplanet.com, 31

Zero correlation, 203, 204

Index 243

About the AuthorJoseph Harris, Ph.D., is a licensed and certifiedschool psychologist who has done extensiveresearch on standardized tests and has consultedon their construction. He is currently adjunct pro-fessor at Converse College and owns FoothillsBehavioral Consulting in Spartanburg, SouthCarolina. Dr. Harris is the author of three of thebooks in the Get Ready! for Standardized Testsseries.

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What Every Parent Needs to Know about Standardized Tests: How to Understand the Tests and Help Your Kids Score High!