Education Week - March 21, 2018 - 7

Study: Don't Use ACT, SAT to Gauge School Achievement
States urged to keep
standards tests
By Catherine Gewertz
States should not use the SAT or
ACT to measure high school achievement because those exams don't fully
reflect states' academic standards
and could distort what's taught in
the classroom, according to a study
released last week.
The paper, issued by Achieve,
which pushes for high-quality standards and tests, calls for a halt in
an assessment trend that's been
picking up steam in recent years:
states using the SAT or ACT instead of their high school tests. This
school year, 13 states are using one
of those college-admissions tests
statewide to measure high school
achievement.
Testing experts have long raised
questions about using the SAT or
ACT as an official measure of high
school achievement. They argue that
college-admissions exams can't do a
good job of measuring students' mastery of their state's academic standards because they were not made
for that purpose. They were designed
to predict students' chance of success
in college.
At the heart of Achieve's paper is
this question: How well do the SAT
and ACT measure mastery of a
state's academic standards? In testing, that's called "alignment." A core
principle of the field is that a test has
to be well aligned to what it aims to
measure-in this case, the knowledge
and skills in state standards-to produce valid results.

'We Respectfully Disagree'
Both the College Board and ACT
Inc. disputed the new paper's contention that their tests aren't well
enough aligned to states' standards.
"While ACT values the opinions of
other experts in the field, we respectfully disagree with the contention
that assessment of state academic
standards and assessment of college
preparedness are mutually exclusive," the company says in a statement.
The College Board said it has conducted studies showing that the SAT
is aligned "with the current standards in all 50 states."
The exam also "meets or exceeds"
all requirements for state assessments in federal law, including that
they align to state standards, the
group said.
"The SAT is the only collegeentrance exam that has been redesigned in accordance with the current
state standards that guide teachers'
work in classrooms around the country," Michele McNeil, the College
Board's executive director of K-12
and global policy and external relations, said in the statement.
Achieve, which played a key role
in developing the common-core test
for the Partnership for Assessment
of Readiness for College and Careers,
examined three recent alignment
studies. All three find the college-

admissions exams lacking, although
to differing degrees.
Among the highlights:
* Study of the ACT's alignment to the Common Core State Standards, by Achieve, 2018:
Less than half the questions in English/language arts and less than half
the math items were judged to be
aligned to the high school expectations in the common core. Questions
that purported to measure mastery of
writing standards didn't ask students
to produce writing. Achieve says that
in its own technical manual, ACT
acknowledges that 40 percent to 43
percent of its math items measure
pre-8th grade math content.
* Study of the feasibility of letting districts
swap Florida state tests for the ACT or SAT,
by the Assessment Solutions Group, 2018:
Neither the SAT nor the ACT fully
cover Florida's academic standards.
Either test would require the state
to add more questions to the collegeadmissions exams for either one to
reflect the state's math and English/
language arts standards. It suggests
the revision or replacement of five to
seven questions in the SAT and 10
or more in the ACT. The study also
found that results from the ACT
and SAT would not be comparable
to those from Florida's own Algebra 1
or 10th grade English tests, "casting
doubt on the interchangeability" of
the three tests.
* Study of the SAT's alignment to the Common Core State Standards, by the Human Resources Research Organization, 2016, for Delaware and Maine: The report found that
76 percent of the English/language
arts questions-a level it describes as
"reasonably aligned"-and 47 percent
of the math items were fully aligned
to the common core, which both
states use as their academic standards. The report singled out weak
coverage of geometry and statistics
and recommended that states add
math questions to adequately reflect
those standards.
Another alignment study, one not
included in Achieve's report, found a
"strong or moderate match" between
the SAT and Connecticut's commoncore standards. The University of
Connecticut research team found the
weakest coverage of math standards
in functions and geometry.
A similar study done for Wisconsin
on the ACT, and also not included in
Achieve's paper, found that the ACT
measures the skills and knowledge
in the state's academic standards. It
notes, however, that in math, some
ACT questions focused on skills "typically addressed at lower grade levels."
Achieve argues that they are important because what's measured on
tests exerts a big influence on what's
taught in classrooms.
"The danger in using admissions
tests as accountability tests for high
school is that many high school teachers will be driven to devote scarce
course time to middle school topics,
water down the high school content
they are supposed to teach in mathematics, or too narrowly focus on a
limited range of skills in [English/
language arts]," the paper says.
Achieve urges states not to adopt
the SAT or ACT to measure high
school achievement for accountability. Giving a college-admissions test

statewide to get more students thinking about-and applying to-college
is an "appropriate" use of those tests,
but using them to measure achievement is "ill advised," the paper says.

A Good Match?
It's a tricky policy issue, because
when states opt for college-admissions tests instead of standardsbased tests, they get benefits that
resonate in the wake of a major backlash against overtesting, said Robert
A. Schaeffer, the public education
director of FairTest, which opposes
high-stakes standardized tests.
"This is a two-edged sword," he
said. "[Using the SAT or ACT] can
reduce the volume of testing. And
it saves parents money by shifting
the cost of those tests from their

checkbooks to the taxpayers."
But there's still the question of
whether the tests are a mismatch for
measuring achievement, rather than
college readiness, he said.
"If you want a test to give you accurate information about students,
teachers, schools, or systems, you
have to know that the test measures
what it claims to," Schaeffer said.
Achieve's paper urges states not
to use the SAT or ACT as statewide
achievement measures. But it also
urges caution if states are considering
giving individual districts the option
to substitute a college-entrance exam
for a state high school test. That's a
new form of testing flexibility in the
Every Student Succeeds Act. Allowing
such a choice could create "significant
comparability issues" between the college-admissions exams and state high

school tests, Achieve argues. It might
also let districts "shop around" for the
test that puts them in the best light.
States that already use the SAT or
ACT to measure high school achievement statewide should consider augmenting it with additional or revised
items for a fuller representation of
their academic standards, the Achieve
paper argues. Maine and Illinois, for
instance, have done so.
ACT spokesman Ed Colby said the
company is "absolutely committed" to
helping states augment the ACT, but
he said the practice "supplements,
rather than establishes, the validity
of the ACT for ESSA accountability
purposes."
The College Board did not respond
to a question about its willingness to
work with states seeking to augment
the test.

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