Candidates want to de-emphasize test scores Candidates want to de-emphasize test scores (October 19, 2001)

Stellar state results great, but learning more important, some say

by Jennifer Deitz Berry

All of Palo Alto schools exceeded the state's performance goal on this year's SAT-9 standardized test.

The favorable local results don't persuade some school board candidates, however, who say California is over-emphasizing tests and rankings to the detriment of learning.

"I believe the testing regimen coming from the state is inherently damaging to a well-rounded education," said school board member John Barton, who is up for re-election.

In election materials, Barton says the state-mandated achievement test, known as the SAT-9, creates incentives for teachers to focus on "facts over competency" and has limited field trips, music, art and elementary science in California's schools. He said the district has a duty to speak out against the testing system: "We must take a leadership role in bringing this system under control."

Realtors and the media eagerly await the fall release of API scores (Academic Performance Index). Schools are scored between 200 and 1,000, based on how well students do on a math and language arts test, offering a shortcut method by which to judge the quality of schools in a neighborhood or district.

In Palo Alto, every school scored well above 800, with the lowest being Barron Park at 858 and the highest at 954 for Walter Hays and Hoover.

State officials tout these rankings as the "cornerstone" of California's accountability program, promising in future years the scores will reflect students' academic performance using a variety of measures. As of right now, the rankings are based solely on one test, the SAT-9.

The commercial test was developed by an arm of the San Antonio-based Harcourt company. The test is sold commercially to states throughout the U.S., and is not aligned with California's content standards.

The test is also "norm-referenced," which means students are judged not on whether they've mastered a baseline set of skills, but on how well they perform in relation to a sample of students drawn from across the nation. That means if students in the sample group all become more test-adept, students in California could conceivably get more answers correct on the test, and still not see their scores go up.

California has set a target of having all schools score above 800. Schools below the target must improve by 5 percent each year or run the risk of sanctions, including the removal of school staff. Schools can also receive financial rewards for five-point score increases.

Teacher Ivan Kolozsvari is another school board candidate who's concerned about the use of testing. "I want to place our district at the forefront of rejecting the ill-conceived testing mandated by Sacramento," he said.

Kolozsvari said the SAT-9 is not a useful measure, since it is not aligned with what students are being taught. "It pushes the teachers to teach to the test, and it's not a good indicator of what students know."

Incumbent Cathy Kroymann and write-in candidate Barbara Mitchell want to ensure test-taking and preparation won't interfere with classroom instruction. Both agree there is a role for testing as long as the limitations are understood.

Kroymann said test scores do help inform the district about strengths and weaknesses in the program, and provide one source of information about how well students are doing. And Mitchell said test results could play a role in the larger project of making sure the district has well-trained teachers and a solid curriculum.

In their campaigns, Barton and Kroymann have both emphasized the importance of using a variety of measures to track students' progress. Though it isn't required by the state, Palo Alto has chosen to administer tests they believe are important measures of what students are learning. Among those is a test called the "ERB" requiring students to write various types of essays. Another is a test designed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), which emphasizes conceptual learning over rote memorization.

More confident in the variety of performance assessments Palo Alto uses, Barton wrote the district's current policy, which "politely discounts" the SAT-9 as a primary measure of student achievement.

E-mail Jennifer Berry at jberry@paweekly.com. For discussion on NeighborSpace.org, type in keyword NSelection. Information on API results is available through the California Department of Education: www.cde.ca.gov