Cut Scores on Standardized Tests Are Arbitrary; Pearson’s GED Recalibration Proves It
It is hard to remember that standardized test scores have no real, objective meaning. How easily we forget this truth.
The standardized tests that are used to rate and rank public schools—the ones that became ubiquitous after the passage of No Child Left Behind, and which, by the way, the Every Student Succeeds Act will leave in place—are graded with cut scores. Somebody in your state education department decides on a cut score that will mean “passing” and other cut scores that will mean “proficient” or “outstanding.” The people who set those cut scores have a lot of power because the scores on the tests confer value judgments on children and on their teachers and on their schools. The scores can shape the self concept of a child or determine whether a teacher gets a raise or even whether a teacher gets fired. Even if a third grader, who began the school year as a non-reader, learns how to read and makes a lot of progress, that child and that child’s teacher won’t get a passing mark unless the child makes the 3rd grade reading proficiency cut score.
But the cut scores are relatively arbitrary. And sometimes they even get changed. Here is a commentary from US News and World Report about Ohio last November: “Last month, Ohio released initial results from its PARCC test, a standardized test used by a group of states, showing that nearly 65 percent of students were proficient in math and English language arts. These numbers were a whole lot better than those of other states on the PARCC, so is Ohio leading the way? Politically, yes. Academically, no. Ohio got these results by rejecting PARCC’s recommended cut scores to designate proficiency and adopting more generous ones. Ohio claims that 69 percent of its fourth graders are proficient in English, but if the state were using Cut Scores on Standardized Tests Are Arbitrary; Pearson’s GED Recalibration Proves It | janresseger: