Our Annual Testing Data Charade
Every year, around this time, states and districts throughout the nation release their official testing results. Schools are closed and reputations are made or broken by these data. But this annual tradition is, in some places, becoming a charade.
Most states and districts release two types of assessment data every year (by student subgroup, school and grade): Average scores (“scale scores”); and the percent of students who meet the standards to be labeled proficient, advanced, basic and below basic. The latter type – the rates – are of course derived from the scores – that is, they tell us the proportion of students whose scale score was above the minimum necessary to be considered proficient, advanced, etc.
Both types of data are cross-sectional. They don’t follow individual students over time, but rather give a “snapshot” of aggregate performance among two different groups of students (for example, third graders in 2010 compared with third graders in 2011). Calling the change in these results “progress” or “gains” is inaccurate; they are cohort changes, and might just as well be chalked up to differences in the characteristics of the students
