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Standards and assessments |
K-12 standards-based reform
While Carnegie course units remain the basic organizing principle in high schools and colleges, it is well-established that course titles do not equate
to specific content and skills. The educational system must have a better way to assure that particular subject matter is being taught, particular knowledge
and skills are being learned, and there is consistency across teachers, school districts, and, ideally, states.
Perhaps the most significant innovation in K-12 reform over the past 20 years has been the standards and assessment movement. Currently, subject-based standards
are in place in 49 states, defining at the state level the knowledge and skills needed at each grade level in specific subject areas. For the most part,
standards are in place up to tenth grade levels, but may not exist for upper-level classes or advanced coursework. Students are assessed on a regular basis
to determine their degree of proficiency, but there are not necessarily consequences to the individual for failure to achieve. These K-12 reforms were for
the most part the result of legislative action in the states, not a result of collaboration with higher education. Such reforms have created a gap between
the knowledge and skills assessed at the K-12 level and those needed for success in college.
Exit exams and end-of-course assessments
Currently, 25 states have exit exams in place or will implement them within the next five years. This represents about half of all public school students,
and by 2009, will represent 70 percent of all public school students.14 The good news is that current exit exams are better than what came before, and they
definitely have potential to raise the floor for high school graduation. The bad news is that in their current form, such exams do not go nearly far enough
to meet college and workforce expectations. This is not surprising, given that the purposes of exit exams are not very clear, even to the states implementing
them. 15 Achieve, Inc. has analyzed the content of exit exams and concluded that exit exams reflect material studied early in the high school career, have
cutoff scores that are too low to assure college readiness, and measure only a fraction of the knowledge and skills essential for college and the workplace.
Achieve, Inc.’s analysis argues that these tests need to be strengthened over time.16 Some believe that setting expectations too high will lead to
increased high school dropout rates. Empirical studies have presented conflicting evidence as to whether more demanding tests lead to increased dropouts.17
Another emerging option available to states is the end-of-course (EOC) assessment. These tests define expectations for specific subjects and are taken immediately
after course completion; they can be used for instructional improvement as well as student assessment and school accountability. Currently, 15 states include,
or will soon include, end-of-course exams in at least one subject as part of their high school assessment systems, and 11 states have at least one test
in all four core subject areas.18
Postsecondary roles and alignment issues
What is clearly missing are comparable standards set by postsecondary education that define the knowledge and skills needed by students to succeed in college.
Currently, colleges and universities use one system for college admissions (based on coursework, grade point average, class rank, and SAT/ACT test scores)
and another system for placement into college-level courses (based on a variety of tests after college acceptance). The maze of assessments related to high
school graduation, college entrance, and college placement confuses students. Public higher education can and must streamline student assessments.
A key factor in preparing students for college is getting the timing of assessments right. It does little good to learn right before college that one is
not prepared for college-level coursework, but it is hardly any better to learn it six months earlier. Many groups are calling for implementing assessments
in middle and high school to serve as an early warning system for students who are not on track. Armed with this information, teachers and counselors have
a better chance of providing students with the courses and services they need to become college-ready.
Promising approaches
Progress is being made on the national and state levels to define standards that span the high school/college transition, improve the timing of assessments,
and develop policies that support greater alignment.
At the national level:
ACT, Inc. has developed Standards for Transition that provides a common language for K-12 and postsecondary education that identifies what students
need to know and should be able to do to succeed in college. Through its Educational Planning and Assessment System (EPAS), ACT works with schools and
states to evaluate student preparedness in 8th and 10th grades. ACT recently launched Ready to Succeed, a national demonstration project that will assess
course quality and rigor in selected districts and determine ways to improve them.
• The American Diploma Project, working with high school teachers, college professors, and employers, developed a set of benchmarks that describe
the specific English and mathematics knowledge and skills that high school graduates must have to succeed in postsecondary education and the workplace.19
• Standards for Success (S4S), a consortium of 28 universities that are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU), developed a
comprehensive statement of what students must know and be able to do to succeed in entry-level university courses called Knowledge and Skills for University
Success (KSUS). S4S then analyzed 66 state high school assessments from 20 states to determine the degree of alignment that exists between state high
school exams and standards for success in entry-level university courses.20
• The College Board has adopted S4S as a core element of its Standards for College Success that will serve as the framework for future versions
of the PSAT, SAT, and AP tests.21 Further, Springboard, a new College Board program, takes the standards and maps them from grade 12 down to grade 6
so that students will be better prepared for college success.
At the state level, there are a number of promising starts:
• California State University has implemented an Early Assessment Program that is optional for 11th graders. By adding several higher order questions
to an existing 11th grade assessment, the test can be used for college placement purposes.
• South Dakota used its high school feedback system to address placement issues and elected to use ACT sub-test scores for both early assessment
and college admission purposes. Kentucky is putting into place a plan that will use ACT sub-scores to qualify students for placement into specific college-level
courses.
• Georgia is the only state claiming college/workforce readiness as an official purpose of its high school exit exam. New Mexico, Texas, and New
York report using exit exams for admissions and/or course placement decisions by some public colleges and universities. Other states expressing some
interest include North Carolina, Ohio, and Nevada.22
• In Illinois, every junior must take the ACT assessment as part of the state’s 11th grade assessment. The test serves double duty, and,
as a bonus, gets more students thinking about college.
• Ohio has developed “Common Expectations” that define what students should know and be able to do to succeed in college.
• Oklahoma has used ACT’s EPAS for a number of years and has seen improved course preparation and college participation.
• Washington has found that its exit exam is as good a predictor of college freshman success as the SAT and is trying to make it a more useful
tool for higher education decisions.
• Wisconsin’s Curriculum Articulation Project aims to create more seamless transitions between high school and college.
• Oregon has been working for more than ten years to align high school exit requirements, college admissions, and college placement through its
Proficiency-based Admission Standards System (PASS).
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14 Center on Education Policy, State High School Exit Exams: A Maturing Reform, (Washington, DC: author, 2004).
15 Ibid.
16 American Diploma Project, Do Graduation Tests Measure Up? A Closer Look at State High School exit Exams, (Washington, DC: Achieve, Inc., 2004).
17 Center on Education Policy, op. cit.
18 Janis Somerville, Lori Levitt, and Yun Yi, State Policy Review of High School End of Course Assessment Programs, (Washington, DC: National Association of System
Heads, 2002).
19 American Diploma Project, Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts, (Washington, DC: Achieve, Inc., 2004).
20 Conley, David, Mixed Messages: What State High School Tests Communicate About Student Readiness for College, (Eugene, OR: Center for Educational Policy Research,
University of Oregon, 2003).
21 Ibid.
22 Center on Education Policy, op. cit. |
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