Standardized Tests

Around the room, Erika Robuck's third-graders are wearing their editing hats: a flowered visor at the middle table, a video store's cap near the back, a floppy golden hat up front. The lesson on a December morning is what Millersville Elementary School pupils know as PQP: Praise, Question, Polish. On the overhead projector is the "sloppy copy" of a classmate, a fable by Michelle Creswell about a young octopus who goofs off and doesn't finish his homework. The pupils tell her how much they like her story, then ask a few questions about her choices, and finish by suggesting changes here and there.

IT'S TWO years late, but the U.S. Department of Education has finally addressed one of the absurdities of the No Child Left Behind Act: the testing of recently arrived immigrant children in a language many of them don't understand. The department announced a few days ago that children who don't speak English will have a year's grace period before they have to take standardized tests in reading and math. That will be of particular help to districts such as Montgomery County with large numbers of immigrant children.

ISSUE: Maryland has set standards that each school must meet to demonstrate "adequate yearly progress" on state math and reading tests, as required under the federal No Child Left Behind legislation. Tomorrow, schools across the state will find out whether enough of their students passed standardized tests to meet the standards. Last year, two Harford County middle schools - Edgewood and Aberdeen - did not meet the standards. Many educators say the tests' role to determine progress may be exaggerated and that other factors, such as grade-point average, should be used to judge improvement.

That schools CEO Andrés Alonso deplores the lavish renovation at headquarters only after the work has been done says a lot about why he should go. Mr. Alonso has abused having a driver, and he brings in outside auditors when standardized tests are given because he doesn't trust the people who work for him, He and the mayor were pictured with President Obama when he signed a wavier to do away with certain requirements of the No Child Left...

Salisbury University on the Eastern Shore has become the first school in Maryland's public university system to make tests such as the SAT optional for students with average grades of 3.5 or better on a 4-point scale. Although de-emphasizing standardized tests is justifiable, Salisbury officials are quick - and right - to point out that a number of factors should govern admissions decisions, not just grades or test scores. Questions have long been raised about how well standardized admissions tests predict first-year college success and whether they are economically and racially biased.

Fifty-two Howard County schools have been recognized by the state for doing well on this year's Maryland School Assessment. The state's School Performance Recognition Program honors schools that have achieved high overall scores or improved their scores among student subgroups, including those with limited English proficiency and special education needs. The schools received certificates during yesterday's school board meeting. Title 1 elementary and middle schools, which have large percentages of needy students, also will receive modest cash prizes.

Joining a national trend, Salisbury University will become Maryland's first public four-year college to allow some prospective freshmen to apply for admission without submitting scores from standardized tests such as the SAT. The university system's governing Board of Regents approved yesterday a five-year pilot program at the Eastern Shore campus that will waive the test requirement for applicants with high school grade averages of 3.5 and higher....

The issue of varying quality and performance among Howard County schools isn't just about schools and test scores. It's about housing, neighborhoods and communities, and ultimately about what this compact county of a quarter-million people will look like in the next century.That's the message given to the county's new Leadership Committee on School Equity by another schools panel sponsored recently by the County Council."You have to take into account the impact of schools on surrounding communities," said Sue Aaron, a Columbia resident who helped write the council panel's report.

A lot of public elementary and middle school principals haven't slept well the past few nights, waiting for the release of the scores from the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program testing this week.Four years ago on this page, I lauded the MSPAP as a different, improved way to test. That was after I had administered the test to a class of fifth-graders. Since then, I've moved on to a middle school, where I have given the test to eighth-graders.I still believe that it is an improvement over the standardized tests that required students to recognize, not generate an answer.

Greater accountability - via standardized testing of undergraduates - is a concept whose time has come in higher education. This is partly the result of sharply rising costs and partly a logical extension of the test-based reforms that have swept through elementary and secondary education. In Maryland and elsewhere, virtually every public or private college these days is studying or trying out some means of better demonstrating the overall learning gains of its undergraduates. But now the Bush administration has a commission looking at the feasibility of comparing colleges by administering nationally standardized tests to their students - a superficially appealing but highly questionable proposition.