Georgia Gazette Consumer Call-In

You're listening to Georgia Public Radio, I'm Sid Hoskinson, and today the topic is High Stakes Testing, and it's such a hot button issue that we wanted to give you a chance to call in with any questions or concerns you might have about these exams. What our toll free number is 1-866 radio GA, that's 1-866-723-4642. You'd have to spend time on a distant planet, actually, not to have heard about Governor Barnes campaign to revamp and improve public education in Georgia. Student assessment tests play an important role in that. Last year, the state legislature expanded student testing, so the first and second graders will now be taking criterion referenced competency tests. In English, language arts and math, along with the states third through eighth graders, plus those same third through eighth graders, we'll have to demonstrate competency in science and social studies as well.

This year, the General Assembly did away with social promotions. Students in third, fifth, and eighth grades will have to pass competency tests in reading and math in order to advance to the next grade. Dr. David Harmon is the director of research evaluation and testing with the Georgia Department of Education. He's one of the developers of the state's criterion referenced competency tests or CRCTs. Is that right? Okay. Thank you for being with us today. Dr. Lewis Gallian is a professor of education at Spellman College in Atlanta, and he's done extensive research on standardized testing. Hi, Dr. Gallian. Thank you. And also Dr. Perry Buffington is here with us. He's an author and licensed psychologist. He's developed successful test-taking strategies over the years, and he's also got some advice for helping kids and parents alike cope with the stress of high stakes exams. And that's nice to have you here as well. Pleasure to be here. Thank you very much. Gentlemen, I'd like to go around the table and give each of you a minute or two, just to tell us where you stand on the issue of high stakes assessment tests and why.

So I guess let's start with Dr. Harmon since it's the law of the land, so to speak. Okay. Yes. I'm David Harmon. I'm the director of research evaluation and testing with Georgia State Department of Education. And as said mentioned, I work on the development of the criterion reference competency test, and also we're just kicking off the development of the end-of-course test also. The upside of using these types of tests are that they're designed to measure specifically what all students in Georgia are required to know and be able to do. The way we've begun the construction of the test is to consider instruction and improving teaching and learning as a major goal of the test from the outset. Meaning that when fully implemented, the criterion reference competency test will be web-based and will be accessible to teachers and students and parents in a way that can be useful in the classroom.

The question about how to use the test beyond that original purpose, I guess, is the point of today's discussion. Specifically, I believe that the question of social promotion and high stakes tests are two different questions. I believe that testing has an extraordinarily high role in accountability and helping all of us know where we need to improve and how best to improve. I do also believe that students, I don't think that students should be socially promoted. I do have a concern though that a test, a single test, on a single day will be used to determine whether or not the student is promoted. Thank you, Dr. Harmon. Dr. Gallian? I think that was a wonderful segue into what I was going to say that a single criterion reference test is problematic, it's problematic number one because it cuts to narrow a slice of the intelligent pie of students. Any time you use one particular type of test, just like the gentleman said previously,

on one particular day you have problems because we know from the research that children learn in many different ways, and in fact, what we're doing in teacher education programs now in departments of psychology that we have informed us over the years, too, is that we have multiple intelligence, we have different learning styles, we have a test that they can be arranged by culture, meaning they can be more cultural responsive and give it a correct historical cultural context. They can tell us a lot, so I'm for assessment, I'm for high standards, I'm for measuring our students here in Georgia, but what I find problematic is exactly what the gentleman said in the State Department using a single test on a particular day to assess what a student knows. Dr. Buffington? It's a pleasure to be with you, and what I'm thinking about it, a lot of your listeners may know me already in Georgia because I go by the nickname Dr. Buff, a lot of them.

So if you know Dr. Buff, you know me, and I have the easiest job of all this whole entire hour, my job is the child and family advocate. And from that standpoint, you know, I can say with Glee that I absolutely hate these kinds of tests. You know, because children do, I have yet to see a child that likes to take a test, and when you look at the number of tests that they've taken over their 12 year period, conservatively, we're talking about 2,600 test quizzes, exams from zero to 12. Throw in college, you got 25 more, throw in grad school, you got 25 more, and there's not a single person out there that likes to take a test. And my concerns, since I can be the child advocate, and almost let my consciousness roam free on this, my problem is, you know, once upon a time you required me to know reading, writing, and arithmetic, those three years, then all of a sudden magically reading, writing, arithmetic, added a fourth art, and it became riddling. So now I've got reading, writing, arithmetic, and riddling, and now all of a sudden some of these politicians, remember now I'm the family advocate, I'm the child advocate, who frankly don't know squat about what I do for living, how hard I work, and how hard

I have to deal with, are now throwing in, reading, writing, arithmetic, riddling, and, and, criterion reference, there's that fourth art testing. We get another problem, parents don't have a clue what's a criterion reference test. Now we three sitting here talk about reliability, and validity, and criterion reference this, and construct validity that, and standard errors of measurement. I mean, we've been having great fun here in this boys club talking about this, but the bottom line is, if this is done right, we are all in agreement, it's a wonderful thing. If it's done poorly, you've got kids who can't take test, you've got kids who are going to fail, you've got kids who are going to develop conditions of learned helplessness, and we're going to be in a bigger mess than we started. My key point here, if it's not done correctly. Well, I can tell we're going to have a lot of fun here. Thank you all. I'll let me take just a moment to tell our listeners that you're listening to Georgia, because that on Georgia Public Radio, and the topic is high stakes testing in case you haven't figured that out.

We will be taking calls, and I know I have lots of questions already, just from those three points of view, and our toll free number is 1-866 radio GA, that's 1-866-723-4642. But before we jump back into our discussion here in the studio, we've got the University of Iowa's Dr. Dave Frisbee on the telephone with us right now, and Dr. Frisbee is a professor, and he's one of the authors of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, something that I think we're all familiar with here. Dr. Frisbee, are you on the line with us? Yes, I am, sir. Hi, listen, I just have a couple of questions for you, because when I started researching this, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to maybe find out a little bit about something that I think most of us are really familiar with from our school days, and that's the ITBS Test, which is kind of redundant. But the ITBS is probably the first standardized assessment test that most of us took as school children, but I understand it didn't start out what is a national test, briefly, when was ITBS created and what was its original purpose?

Well, I actually said the seed for the ITBS and ITD was planted way back in the late 20s, 1929, actually, when we began developing tests in Iowa to be used for what was then called the Iowa Brain Derby. And the Brain Derby was something like what all of us know now as a track meet, but it was academic rather than athletics. And the idea was to have a statewide competition among schools in 10 different areas to see which schools had the highest achieving kids, and the two winners at each school went to a regional competition, and then from each region of the state, the two winners were selected to come to Iowa City, and the winners there actually got some modest scholarships and other recognition for their achievements. So our test today really began at that time as a not an accountability measure, not even as an instructional improvement device.

Well, in what significant ways have the ITBS test changed, evolved? Well, they've evolved in several ways. One, it's diored out as a set of tests that was used primarily in grade 6 through 8, and now we go kindergarten through grade 8 with the ITBS, and then the ITD, Iowa Test and Education Development are used at the high school level, so that the span is much greater. We have continued in our state to emphasize the use of test results for improving instruction and monitoring the growth of students in terms of achievement. We don't have an accountability program at this point in our state, and so we're in a very somewhat unique position, I think, to be able to use our tests this way. Now, is there a single thing that you've learned a lesson that you think it's important for policymakers and educators to know and to practice out of all of this?

Well, I'm sure there are several, but the one that sort of comes to the surface first for me is that a given tool, whether it be the ITBS or some other state criterion reference test or locally developed test, whether it be criterion reference or norm reference, anyone instrument cannot be used very well to serve both instructional improvement and accountability purposes. If you try to use an instrument scores from instrument for both of those purposes, it's just not going to work. We have some people in the studio with me, and we have a couple minutes that we can spend here. Does anybody have a question of Dr. Frisbee? Well, one thing that immediately comes to mind, Buffington here, is that I really like the idea that you started off with the brain derby, and my comment is, you started off making testing fun where people could really enjoy it, and then what happened? What went wrong? How did you end up with a standardized mess that everybody has to take? And I say that lovingly, of course.

Well, I appreciate those remarks. It's sort of interesting, actually, the way that worked. It worked so well in Iowa that our neighboring states wanted to be part of it, and so we expanded and allowed states near us to use these tests in ways similar to the way we used them. And then the thing just mushroomed. There was a broader and broader interest in the EF link list, who really began all of this, is the one who actually then decided that there was more than we could handle, and to Houghton Mifflin, who has been our long-time publisher. And now I know in Georgia, where a lot of school districts, maybe the state, we're moving to the Stanford Nine, and moving away from the ITBS test. Why is that? Have they told you, Dr. Frisbee? Well, the way this works is states will have a request for proposal, an RFP where they

ask testing companies to essentially bid on providing materials and services for assessment for the state as a whole. And Riverside Publishing Company, our publisher, had that contract for a number of years. Then it was signed for a renewal of that contract, and it had to be an open competition. And there are a number of factors, including price, including content characteristics of the assessments and technical characteristics. And in that competition, there's also a good deal of politics that goes on. And it's very hard to say just what the final issues were that determined who was going to get that contract, but it turned out not to be us. So that goes to the point, and one of the I'm concerned with in Georgia, is that this

is going to become truly big business. Testing has been a big business for quite a long time. Let me go back to the professor's comment. You're absolutely right all the way up through the politics business, basically exactly what you said. We have an RFP. Riverside has done a nice job, ITBS did a nice job with us for about 15 years. And I actually state law requires that contracts be bid no longer than seven years. So we were sort of overdue. And you're exactly right what the characteristics were when all said and done, all three of the big companies did meet technical, which would be sort of surprising if they didn't, and then it did sort of come down to cost. But to my knowledge, it's certainly not a political involvement there on anybody's part. Well, thank you, Dr. Frisbee. Sure.

University of Iowa Professor Dr. Dave Frisbee is one of the authors of the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, and thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you. We're talking about high stakes testing, in which student assessment exams can result in weighty consequences, good and bad. I got to add that, good things can come. Our toll free number is 1-866 radio GA, and we're going to go to our phones in just a minute. But right now, I want to talk briefly with, we're going to be talking, we're going to go to the phones, and talk briefly with Debbie Graves Ratcliffe. She's going to be joining us in just a minute with the Texas Education Agency, because we've heard so much about the Texas testing system, I guess, for a number of reasons we're going to be asking her why that is. So I just wanted to visit that system and find out what's going on in Texas that seems to be so magical that the rest of the country must follow suit with that. I'm sure Dr. Harmon, Dr. Harmon's smiling, so you probably know it's going on in Texas, that the rest of us are just kind of catching up with.

But we're going to be talking with her in just a minute. One thing that we keep hearing about, one word that keeps cropping up over and over and over again, is accountability, the word accountability. And finally, after all of my reading, I finally began to wonder, accountability for what and to whom? Well, let me go. And I think this is the heart of, basically, Superintendent Srianko's full administration from day one. And I think it was echoed in the reform legislation also. It's accountable to the public, to the parents, to the children for improving teaching learning. And the product and the purpose of education clearly has to be improving teaching and learning. And the test is one way, not the only way, but a darn good way to find out whether or not we're actually doing that or not. And if we aren't, then we need to find out and figure out what to do so that we do ensure that all students do make as much progress as possible. So I think there's an underlying issue here, and I think it's much deeper, and then I

think has to do with hope scholarships, and I want to talk about that for a second. There is a lot of pressure on teachers to inflate grades, not just here, but across the country. And as a result, when you have to keep a GPA, to keep a scholarship like a hope, grades become inflated and have become inflated, and therefore, when we talk about accountability, I think legislators have kind of seen between the lines and says, look, we can no longer trust GPAs. I can't trust him here in Georgia. I can't trust him across the country. But what we think we can trust now is a standardized test. But I think one of the reasons that I'm on this show is to show, no, you can't. Just because grades are inflated, and I will admit that, and there's no doubt that we live in an era of inflated grades, doesn't mean then that you go to another flawed system in which to assess students. I should say a test, a single test, to assess students. And that's my point, really, is multiple assessments. If we would go to multiple assessments of students' progress and achievement, we could

get a better overall biographical picture of the students. Problem is, legislators don't want to do it too costly, takes too much time. They already have contracts with ETS and other places to give it cheaply and more easily. So this is not a quick fix issue. And legislators believe that they're elected to fix things quickly. Let's just cut to the chase, okay? What? What is that? What makes educators and legislators believe that a kid can actually sit there, take a four hour test, and function properly with all of this pressure? I mean, let's just cut to the chase. I mean, I honestly, genuinely dislike standardized tests. I believe they are a measure at one point in time. If you've got a kid who's sick, I think you've got very many, many problems. There's no such thing as a culturally free test. They all have diversity problems. What? I mean, why don't we just cut to the chase? So many parents are there saying this thing is worthless. It's a drain on the tax dollars.

It's not the fix. They're grappling at straws. Why don't they try something that works? I don't think a standardized test is the answer. Well, I think this is a perfect time to go to Texas and to talk to Debbie right now. Debbie, are you on the phone? I am. Debbie Graves Ratcliffe is in Texas. And she is with the Texas Education Agency. Is that correct? That's right. This is Dr. Buffington, and he was talking about the cultural issue. And I know that Texas has already weathered an assault to the cultural aspect of your standardized test in the courts. Can you explain a little bit about what happened there? I know. I think Texas, you won a court case. And how is that working out? Do you have a large Hispanic population? We do. We have probably like Georgia schools, the majority of children in Texas public schools are minorities, either black or Hispanic. And we have tried to address that issue of racial bias in a couple of ways.

Every single question on our test, which is called the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, goes through a nine-step process. And among the things that we're trying to weed out to make sure it's a good question, it's racial bias. And when we filled test that question where we tried it out before it really counts on a test, if we see that an unusually large number of any particular type of child is failing it, we'll throw the question out and we won't use it. So we screened for bias early on in the test before it actually goes to the students. And then you're right a couple of years ago, there was a federal lawsuit filed against the Texas program, aimed primarily at the our 10th grade test, which kids have to pass in order to get their high school diplomas, and that lawsuit largely alleged that it was unfair to minorities in Hispanics in particular, and that it was biased. And a federal court judge in San Antonio, and this judge happened to be Hispanic, took

weeks and weeks of testimony and ultimately found that our test was solid, that it was not biased, and that it was a reasonable tool for evaluating who should graduate from our schools. We have, let me see, Dr. Gallian with Spellman College here in Atlanta. I have a question. Yeah, I have a question. Does that mean that you eliminated negative reasoning on that test? Meaning neither A nor C, neither B nor D. All of the above and none of the above, did you eliminate those? Well, it's definitely a multiple choice test. No, but do you understand what I'm saying, though, not exactly, no, okay. I think what she's saying is that she's with the Department of Communications there with the Texas Education Agency, so she's not one of the authors of the test, so Dr. Gallian is a person. I think my point is that even ETS has told us that African-American children do not do

well in negative reasoning. I mean, ETS finally admitted to something about their worthless test. No, but this is a person, this is a person who I could not quote on air, and it would be her job if she said it because she said it in front of a group of researchers. I really, I am genuinely impressed that ETS would admit that their test is not perfect in every conceivable, wonderful, Mary Poppins way. Debbie, are you there? I am. I told you I didn't, I told you I would, it's not going to put you on the spot. So let me ask you. I think she deserves to be on the spot because we're putting thousands of kids in the state of Georgia on the spot to do this, so we're all on the spot, not just David, we're all on the spot. But I wanted to ask her just as a basis for what is going on around the country is why do we hear about Texas all the time? What is it about Texas that keeps coming up, that all the states keep, that's held up as a poster child for standardized testing? I think you probably hear about Texas and its testing program primarily for two reasons.

We have one of the oldest testing programs in the country. We've had a state student test since 1980 and then I think you've in the past year heard a lot about us because Governor Bush ran for president and won that office and that put a tremendous spotlight on our testing program and all of our programs here. So in effect, it's who's in the, who's in the Oval Office now basically is what's Texas to the fore? That definitely generated a lot of calls from my office. Well, it did so from us, I have a feeling. Thank you very much for being with us today. Okay, you're welcome. Debbie Graves Ratcliffe is with the Texas Education Agency and that state system has been held up to the rest of the nation as an example of tests that work. And you're listening to Georgia Gazette on Georgia Public Radio. Our topic today is high stakes testing in Georgia and our guests are Dr. David Harmon with the State Department of Education and if you will say hello so people can associate

your voice with your name. Hello, how you doing? It's pleasure to be here. And Dr. Lewis Gallien who's a professor of education at Spellman College in Atlanta. And our author, licensed psychologist, child advocate, Dr. Perry Buffington. Pleasure to be here. The whole free number is 1-866 radio GA, that's 1-866-723-4642. And we're going to go to our phones, take our first call. And I don't quite know who we're going to. Amanda in Augusta? Okay, Amanda in Augusta, you're on our air. Okay. Hello, how are you guys doing today? Just fine. Go ahead with your question. Okay. I have a question. I'll call it student. I'm finishing up. And this is the first time I have ever had a case study class. And I was wondering why case studies are not used often. They actually are used a lot in law schools. Harvard started, I think, a long, long time ago. And a lot of graduate education is based on case studies. And I think you're exactly right, though.

I think we found case studies to be incredibly efficacious because they give students a real feel, a real touch, you know, touch taste smell of an issue. So I'm glad that you're endorsing it because I think we need to do more of it. But it is done a lot in graduate education, by the way. Louis, as the family advocate here, why don't you kind of explain what, you know, this case study method is because there are a lot of people who genuinely do not know what it is. Okay. This class involves us reading all of our chapters in the book and it's coming to class and actually discussing what we find the main points are and what we got out of this chapter. And then we discuss it as a class and the professor mainly just leads us into a discussion if he needs to. I'm wondering then why they call that case study because it sounds like you're getting it from a book. Are they giving you actual studies in terms of an actual case in your class? It's in there also. Okay. Okay. That's good. Okay. Tell me what you think is so effective about it.

I think it's effective because you have to pick out what is important in the chapter. It's not the professor that's actually teaching you that this is what you have to know for your test. It's more of, see what you see is good about this and why you think it's important and we don't have any tests in this class and it's real relaxing, we, I think it's great. I think it's one of the best things I've done in college. But how are you assessed then? How does the professor know that you're learning? And by a participation in class, 90 percent of our participation is how we can unicate our ideas in class. And how many students in your class? There are 50. Wow. So he actually gives you a participation grade for 50 students. We, he has a dial that he spins it and there are a bunch of numbers on there and if it lands on your number, you're the first person to talk. And then from there, everyone is led into a discussion. But I, and you're saying that your whole grade for the class is based on that assessment. There are two case studies we have to write. Okay.

Okay. It won't fly. It's too complicated. It's too expensive. Can't do it for all the kids in Georgia. And parents don't understand what it is. They want to score. They want to point. They want an IQ. They want to stay nine. They want to know. Well, work. Sorry, Amanda. Dr. Harmon, what do you think? Oh, I, I think it sounds like a lot of fun, but I'm not sure who's accountable for what? Well, I'm sorry, I think we're losing Amanda. We're back. And we're back to the point that's so important with this testing movement. There's got to be so much education for parents to understand. They've got to know that a score is just a score. They've got to know what it means. You've got to get teachers involved in training. And right now, they don't feel like they have time to come and take the training. There's so much involved with this. But the, I mean, I have worked with students who had the IQ of a stick, but they could pass standardized tests because they knew how to take the test. I've worked with some kids with IQs way up there that couldn't take a test. And the research shows very clearly that very bright students tend to read too much into

multiple choice tests. So we've got to educate people what a score is, what it's for. And once again, we're back to that simple issue of, okay, what's a criterion reference? Well, I'll talk a little bit about what it is and why it's important to maybe one more shot at it. Again, the point is that we have a standardized curriculum in Georgia. And that standardized curriculum is the quality core curriculum. And the criterion reference part is it's designed specifically to measure what lawmakers and governments in Georgia has decided is important for Georgia students to know and be able to do. And I agree that that certainly tests, criterion tests or other types of any tests are certainly far from perfect, but they do give us a really a sound indicator of how well students have accomplished these content standards of the QCC. Once you have some of those pieces and parts in place, such as a standardized curriculum, with latitude to be augmented and certainly hope that it will be augmented around the

state, then you have an opportunity to hold all of us, not just teachers, not just students, not just administrators, but the entire education community accountable for what it is we're supposed to do. And that is to help students learn. Well, I wouldn't have a problem with that if it wasn't the indicator. And I think that's the problem. It's becoming the indicator instead of, like I said, multiple assessments of looking at a student's intellectual capabilities. It's very limited and that's why what we're talking today is high stakes and the reason we're talking about high stakes is if you're using that as the indicator of a student's progress or achievement, it's problematic in any way that you look at it. And the problem, and the problem really is, is that because we don't trust teachers to come up with either accurate GPAs or a cohesive curriculum, we're looking to something outside of that. And that, of course, has caused some really, really some problems among Georgia teachers because they don't feel trusted either. And that really is the crux of the whole thing that what I have been reading actually is

really the bottom line is lack of trust or distrust of educators. And we're also looking for something that's very neutral to blame. Oh, you think it's a matter of casting about for some of the blame? I do indeed. I think it's very easy to say, well, they didn't do well on the test, so therefore they fail. Move on. I think it's like, I don't have to take responsibility. They failed on this test. What do you do about ADHD kids who have difficulties? What do you do with the bright kids who don't test well? Einstein could not pass a math criterion reference test. He could not. He failed. What do we do about those kinds of kids and how do we educate parents not to consign their children to the depths of whatever when they don't pass the test? Well, first of all, let me get into that just a bit more too. In fairness to the governor's office and certainly to our Department of Education as well as teachers and good teachers and administrators around the state, there is quite an extensive effort to do something about it.

I mean, I don't know, truthfully, that all of the testing that we do is necessary to identify all the different problems and so on. But it is the catalyst, I mean, the test or the catalyst that can cause change. I said, can. It doesn't necessarily happen, but it can. And as we speak, incredibly complex and fairly expensive efforts are being put in place statewide as well as locally to help do something about, to have a high bar and then help get all the kids above the bar. I'd like to go back to the question that we probably agree on. And that is where the probably linking back to the social promotion. I would certainly agree that that multiple measures would be preferred to a single measure. And I don't know right off whether or not the Office of Accountability will use multiple measures. I know the law is fairly specific in terms of using the criterion test, but there's also quite a number of indicators that will also be supporting or contextual information that will be useful.

I think the point of agreement is that I don't think anyone's in favor of the social promotion, but when you take that test, it may provide some useful information, but we certainly ought to have other sources of information also. I think whatever is going on in this room is making people who are listening go to their phones with questions because our phone lines are lighting up. So maybe what we need to do is go to the phones, hear what some people have to say, the questions they want to ask and maybe keep our responses brief and maybe help some people out a little bit. So Anna and Augusta, are you still there? I am. I know you've been waiting for a while and they may have answered your question already because we kind of touched on it, I think. But go ahead. Well, what I was wondering with all this talk about taking people to task and accountability is, has anyone ever taken standardized testing to task? In other words, have there been studies showing school districts who enacted standardized testing dramatically improved and these children graduated from college and were happy? Is there any measurable or do these test scores just sit?

And also, can we test curriculum as frequently as we test children? Can we evaluate and re-evaluate our curriculum two and three times a year? I think that's, this is Dr. Gallen. I can answer, I can give you partial answers to all three questions. First of all, the best book for you is Peter Sacks, S-A-C-H-S, called Standardized Minds. He gives a wonderful lay person's review of the literature on the effective standardized tests in America. The other one I would, when you have more time is the mismeasure of man by Stephen J. Gould. Secondly, some of the tests that are curriculum-based that seem to be a little successful have come out of core knowledge curriculums by the University of Virginia. I think if you want to look at tests that are centered around a curriculum, those seem to be pretty efficacious. And I'm actually studying how African Americans are doing in that core knowledge curriculum, my daughter's in one of those schools.

And right now, the three-year results have not been bad. So again, we're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We're saying that there can be ways that the standardized tests can be used for specific purposes like a curriculum. And I think your third question, what was your third question that was standardized, you talked about curriculum, you talked about the literature on standardized tests, and there was another point. Just, I guess, can we go over, can we look at the test, yes, can we go over, can we take it past, more than the children, and so on? Yeah, the other thing I was going to tell you, here's what standardized tests do predict very well, income and color, income and color. If you're an upper, middle class, white person, you're going to, mostly, most of the time, you're going to do very well on these tests, they are, they predict it incredibly well. So if you want to validate, if you want to validate race and color and income, there is.

That's what I thought. And so, what do you think about the above things in here, do not predict success? That's right. They do not, they never will, there's no way that you can create a test that will predict success. They just don't do it. So once again, I'm back to the child's advocate family position. How do I teach parents how to teach their kids that it's just a test and don't freak out over it? Well, because the truth is, if you hold up the deed to someone's home in a match and then ask them their address, chances are they'll falter. Well said. If you make someone nervous enough, they'll forget everything they know. Absolutely. Then we get into conditions like learned helplessness, whether kids can't perform, or if it somehow transmogrifies into what we've got in Britain with the O levels and the A levels. If you're in Britain the day after the A levels, the headlines read suicides today. Oh, yeah. Now let's pray to God that never happens in the U.S. But parents go nuts over scores because they don't understand them. And we got to teach the people and a test is just a test. It's nothing more than that is, is not predict your future. In fact, that wedge between, that it tends to drive between parents and children is one of the unintended consequences of these high stakes.

In other words, do better, do better, do better, do better, do better. Even though they know their children are smart enough and good enough and all of the nice things that children are, the test scores come. I got a great idea. Let's give the parents and the governor the test. I agree. I agree. Especially the governor though. The governor should have to take it as many times as the children. And if he fails it, he can't be governor anymore. No social promotion for him. He doesn't go back to Lieutenant Governor. He has to do it over. Thank you very much. Thank you. We're going to go right on to our next caller. Our number is 1-866 radio GA. If you want to call in and talk to our experts here. Topic is high stakes testing, Julie in Augusta. You're on the air. Julie, go ahead. Hello. I don't remember the name of the person who asked about negative testing. Dr. Gallian. Dr. Gallian. I don't think that was made clear to the audience exactly what it is. And why was that question asked of the woman in Texas? And I had one of the questions.

We moved from Colorado to Georgia. And my kids saw teachers testing, teaching to the test, time after time after time. And our children told us, but I don't know that they were read the questions. They were going to be on the test. Now we didn't think that was fair. But we didn't do anything about it. That's why we're just, they're the big broad concepts here that we should be teaching. And not just, well, no fact A, B and C. You saw like a pretty frustrated mom. Well, it was such a shock to have that happen. Is there any difference between teaching to the test and teaching that test? Yeah, there is. This is why we're talking high stakes. And it doesn't really, it really does bring up the question of dishonesty. And I think the problem is there are so much emphasis on the test for teachers, careers that you're going to find.

And we already found widespread cheating across the country. So there are moral and ethical implications as well. But negative reasoning is when you put together a multiple choice test and you say, neither A nor D, none of the above, neither A nor C, neither A, B, C, D, and so on and so forth. The research is clear that African-American children do not do well on negative reasoning tests. We're not quite sure why. Yet a lot of this is the tail wagging the dog ETS gives us some selective information and then we try to figure out now what do they mean? And what does that mean especially for children of color? Because you know, the problem is it's not our children that are the problems in this room today. And so even some of the collars, it's children of poverty, it's children in rural areas in Georgia. It's others who are going to be out of the educational pipeline. And I think that's really the other issue is that who does it leave out of the pipeline? How about lower socioeconomic problems? Yeah, well, I think to see that see other problem.

That wouldn't understand that and that was always I think hard for anyone or why not to step straight forward questions. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And one brief point here, the brain does not know how to process the word not. So you get into different kinds of reasoning to prove the point. If I said you do not think of a white horse, you immediately think of a white horse. The brain does not know how to process the word not. So we get into all kinds of convoluted testing problems here. And of course, that's one of the reasons why it takes so long and calls so much to build a good high quality test, like our criterion reference competency test. We're going to, we're running out of time. So I think we're going to jump right ahead. I hope we answered Julie's question. We're going to go to Dan in Athens. Dan, go ahead, you're on the phone with us. Hi, my big question is, and I've heard you talk about the testing and criterion and stuff. What is the desired outcome? Oh, that's a good question. We supposed to, everybody talks like we agree on a particular homogenized outcome. I mean, we celebrate diversity and culture, and yet we've got this monolithic test.

And what are we testing for? Do we want a whole nation of computer geeks who are just going to sit down and do what they're told? And be, you know, perfect consumers, are we testing for real intelligence? And number two, why, if we're testing for intelligence to the people who come up and trumpet this educational excellence, why do we have such pathetic examples in the governor and the president? This is horrifying. Anybody who wants to take this out? Well, let me, let me take it this way. One of the, one of the things that I would like to see with testing, and we all agree we've got to have some kind of testing. The question is, why? I agree with that. If, if I had the perfect world, the kinds of tests that I would create would be what's called application test, as opposed to those tests which prepare you for nothing but jeopardy and who wants to be a millionaire, okay? But application tests are very difficult to prepare, and if I understand to give the governor his due on this, what the, what the state system's trying to do is to create a certain level of competencies upon which everyone can build.

The question is. I agree on this. That's the problem. Where is the, where is the, the consensus? Oh, the, and who's been asked? I certainly haven't been asked. As far as the, it's the, the statewide curriculum is the quality core curriculum, and that's been, it was revised, I guess, four or five years ago, and did involve quite a, quite a few teachers as well as business and folks from various industries and alike. And basically, and, and one of the, one of the positives here is that the test, although it's designed to match that curriculum and not predict whether they're going to be whatever you're saying, Dr. Buffett. Uh, but whether or not they've acquired what, uh, at least the state board has approved and agreed to, uh, as, as what students should know and be able to do. Now, the test will also generate kinds of questions such as what, what you mentioned that will cause the curriculum to be looked at again and again. In other words, the test is based on the curriculum.

The test once administered then will give calls to revise the curriculum. And, um, and in that sense, that's, you know, that's a good thing to make sure that what we're teaching is, as you say, you didn't say this, but it's worth teaching. So it's also the test of the curriculum as well as, well, it is, it is a test to determine whether or not the students have, have learned the, the quality core curriculum. And that was, uh, and, and Georgia is among the states that, that has a one standardized curriculum, but hastened to say that, that I would certainly hope that, that all districts and all schools and all teachers augment that, uh, that, that, that, that, uh, quality core curriculum with additional, uh, information as, as is, even specific to a particular areas in the state. Well, Dan, we hope that answered your question. We're going to go on to our next caller, Paul in Abbeyville, Alabama is on the air with us now. Go ahead, Paul, with your question. Hi. Yes. Thank you very much. I just want to say that, uh, I do believe that, uh, the education process that we have,

probably does need some kind of, uh, revamping, but, uh, the statement that was made earlier about testing and not knowing anybody who enjoys taking testing, um, I just wanted to, to further that and say that, you know, I, it's not that I jump out and down and say that I would love and can't wait to go take a test, but I do take them as a positive challenge and that everybody that I've known through my grade school and high school and even the college level and, uh, graduate level that we, we take these things as positive challenges to prove that we studied the material and know what the professor or the teacher was teaching us during the course. Now, there's some really good lessons to be learned here and this goes back to what the guy from Iowa said the first time where it started off as a brain derby. If somehow we can bring out, I mean, perhaps we ought to do a party the day before the test. I mean, something that's simple to take mine, the kids' minds off the test or to put, maybe when we want to look at as a celebration of knowledge instead of a test of defeat, there are any number of things that a school can do at grade one, two, three and perhaps this young man is product of it, where kids can learn how to enjoy the testing process

and not be afraid of it. Now, if we can do that, we may have a great test. You're right. Now, I think the attitude up front is where accounts, where if you have parents or anybody else, or even fellow students, peers who are negative up front about the test, people are going to go into negative about a test, whereas with me, it's, it's seeing, well, if I, if I got to be, well, that's room for improvement. Absolutely. And then the parent side, the kid goes home, mom, I got to take this test tomorrow and the mother and dad go, oh, I hate tests too, just do the best you can. Well, I hope he goes home and says, I got to test next week and he starts working on it at the time. That's good. And you know, I hope one thing that I hope the state will do instead of doing four hours of testing on, testing on Mars, because the body can't process it equally throughout that four hours, spread it out over a period of time. Why do you have to do four hours? Well, actually, they are spread out. How was the day, let's do, let's do 15 minutes a day. Okay. He gave me this strange look, which we're on TV here, but the bottom line is why not? My brain can process a whole lot better for 15 minutes than it can for a three hour

stretch. I think we've got, we've got two minutes, I think that before we're going to have to start wrapping this up, I think that's time for just one more call if Sandy and Hamilton keeps it short and if we keep our answer short, so go ahead, Sandy. I appreciate it very much. Sandy, if you did keep it to a 15-minute minimum, I have a grandson who has a attention deficit disorder. He is also bipolar. How, what ideas do you have for children accommodating these kinds of children without labeling them and keeping them back because they can't sit and take tests for long periods and I'll take my answers up here, thank you. Makes perfect sense to me. I mean, you know, why do you have to take an hour test? We know for a fact that the brain is wired to concentrate heavily for 20 minutes on a stretch, but now with TV, we know that the brain is better wired to concentrate at 11 minute intervals because of what commercials are and these ADHD kids, why it does not hurt at all to give short tests to everyone? Dr. Herman.

Oh, well, in fact, there are accommodations that are determined by LEP teams or teams of educators that allow students to have more time or break up the test in the varieties of different ways and I guess I sort of finished by saying that most of our tests are about 40 minutes in length and for most of us, you know, we have to, in life, we have to work more than 15 minutes at a time. Dr. Gallian. I don't have anything to add, I think that's the ADHD is an excellent question and I think in terms of provisions, it's going to be tough, or I think ESL too, English is a second language, what do you do with those students? What do you do? You know, there's so many problematics that it really does call into question the whole validity. But I don't think that's the issue. It's a political issue. It's not an educational issue. I think we have to be very clear. This is a political issue for a governor who's coming up for election and has to show progress. I mean, this is very simple. And back to my good friend, David's comment, we may work an eight hour day but we don't work equally through that eight hour day. We all, I think it's called in corporate America when you don't want to work the illusion of busy, we all create that at some point.

We all agree as I hear this group that testing is necessary and inevitable, where we disagree is how do we do it and how do we create, but we all agree how do we create a better test. My comment is, how do we teach kids easy ways to take tests, to not be afraid of them, and how do we teach parents that a score does not mean that your kid is consigned to be a ditch digger for the rest of his life? Well, I just have one question. Since we're going to run out of time, we don't have time to take another call, unfortunately. But why can't one test do it all? Why can't one test? Because there are multiple intelligences. We're not all gifted in logical mathematical reasoning. There is no such thing as cookie cutter. I think that's the problem. I think if you look at someone like Michael Jordan, who is incredibly kinetically gifted, he may not be as gifted logically mathematically. I think if you look at other people who, you know, in artists who are not logically mathematically inclined yet, yet they do very well in their field. So I think the problem is the human brain cannot be assigned a number. And I think as a result, we have to look at intelligence and performance in multiple,

multi-cultural venues, rather than a mono-cultural, mono-intelligence arena. Well, where do you think we're failing? Why do you think there's so much distrust? Why aren't our kids as educated as we were at their age? Because a lot of the learning that we had was application learning. It wasn't just C. Jack Run. It was visualized Jack Running. And then the teacher would say, where do you think they're going? What are they processing? It was application learning. Somehow over the years it's gone to road learning. Well, first of all, I have a criteria and reference test is far more than C. Jack Run or whatever. And it's certainly much more than isolated facts or incidental or anything like that. I think we probably are. I think the kids today are much more informed. And I think they're informed not only through school, but also through the internet, through TV, through a lot of different experiences that we didn't have. So I think maybe kids are better off than we are. And also teachers are doing a better job.

And I believe that the test will be a positive influence in helping us all make sure that we're doing the best we can do. Then where did the distrust come from? Well, I think it's come since the 19th. You can pinpoint it in 1983 when Bill Bennett came out with a nation at risk. And if you start from there, then you go. And this is a man who went to Congress every year and said, cut my budget, get rid of my department. And from there, we had a culture of distrust in public schools. And not only that, do you all have the culture of violence in public schools. And you know schools, mirror society. So we're not people in our family life. We're upheavals in our inner cities. We're upheavals in a lot of ways. And I think this whole, what I call hermeneutic of suspicion, is a cultural phenomenon that occurs. And it's not just in our schools. It's a loss of institutional faith that we have in our institutions as a whole in America. So when we look at this issue, we need to look at it across the board in society and not just our schools. I think it's simpler than that. I think it started with good old ETS, you know, do well on this test and, you know, God will grant you a boom.

Who's God? ETS. It's a test. I don't think life is that simple. We've got to figure out a way to teach people how to take test before, and that will start to minimize a lot of the diversity problem. Well, we're actually running out of time. And I really would like to take this opportunity to thank our guests who have been in our studios answering questions and sharing their knowledge. That would be Dr. David Harman, Director of Research, Evaluation, and Testing with the Georgia Department of Education, Dr. Louis Gallian, Professor, and Researcher, the Department of Education at Spellman College in Atlanta, and Dr. Perry Buffington, author, licensed psychologist, and child advocate. Who I hoped was going to get to share some test-taking strategies, tips and techniques, but we've run out of time. Next time. Next time. Anyway, the topic today was high stakes testing in Georgia. And thank you all very much for being here and helping us out. Our program today was produced by James Argroves with additional help from Kisha Jones. Mara Fairley was answering our phones today.

I'm Sid Hoskinson, and as always, thank you all very much for listening. Georgia Gazette is made possible in part by a grant from West Point Stevens, the name behind great names like Grant Petrishan, Martex, Stevens, Lady Pepperel, Vellix, and Chatham, found on the web at West Point Stevens dot com.