Education Week - July 8, 2015 - 21

OVERTESTING? A SELF-QUIZ FOR DISTRICTS
Amid a national debate over whether students take too many tests, the Achieve organization has created a tool designed to help districts
catalog their tests, consider how they're used, and decide whether to eliminate them. Among the questions districts can ask themselves:

Which students are
eligible or required to
take the assessment?

To what degree do users
of the assessment find
it useful or not useful?

What is the annual
cost of the test?

How frequently is
the test given?

How much time
does it take to
administer the test?

Is the test administered
with a computing device,
paper and pencil, or
some other means?

How long between the
test administration and
when the results are
available to users?
SOURCE: Achieve Inc.

funded by conservative groups.
Indeed, a blow to Abood could
have major political ramifications. Labor unions heavily support Democratic candidates and
have been among the groups putting muscle behind progressive
priorities such as health-care reform and same-sex marriage.
The nea and the aft joined
with other public-sector unions
to criticize the court's decision to
take the case.
"The Supreme Court has chosen to take a case that threatens the fundamental promise of
America-that if you work hard
and play by the rules you should
be able to provide for your family
and live a decent life," the coalition said in a statement.

Reading the Signs
Michael A. Carvin, a Washington lawyer who is representing
Rebecca Friedrichs and the other
nonunion teachers challenging
their agency fees, said in an interview that "the fact that the court
granted review indicates great
discomfort with Abood and the
agency-fee regime it represents."
But Alice O'Brien, the general
counsel for the nea, said there is
still some mystery about the Supreme Court's internal debate from
last term. "I think it's clear they
did not have the votes to overrule
Abood in the Harris case," she said.
"I think it is still an open question
where the fifth vote is."
Nevertheless, the teachers'
unions have been preparing for
the loss of fair-share fees, given
the current Supreme Court's ideological makeup. Seven nea state
affiliates have already crafted a
guide on how to attract members
should the fees be prohibited.
The union has also hired several
field organizers from other unions,
such as the Service Employees
International Union, to improve
organizing skills. And in its public
statements and positions, it has
been pressing several themes, including overreliance on standardized testing, that resonate strongly
with members.
The Supreme Court will hear
arguments in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association in its next
term, which begins in October.
Contributing Writer Mark Walsh
contributed to this story.

Actions Vary Amid Concerns About Testing Load
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

very upset and say, 'That's my favorite assessment,' " said Donald
D. Owen, the superintendent of the
4,200-student Urbana School District 116 in Illinois, one of three districts in the state to pilot the state's
Student Assessment Inventory. That
inventory is based on a tool created
by Washington-based Achieve, which
works with states to implement standards and testing. "We want to talk
about ... how can you get the same
information another way?"

Traction in Legislatures
Colorado and Florida are two
states that have taken direct legislative action to cut tests this year after
significant backlash to their testing
regimens.
In Colorado, House Bill 15-1323,
signed into law by Democratic Gov.
John Hickenlooper in May, eliminated
the state social studies test altogether.
It also cut the exams developed by the
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, in English/language arts and math, for high
school juniors and seniors.
Florida House Bill 7069, signed
into law by gop Gov. Rick Scott in
April, capped the amount of testing in a school year to 5 percent of
school hours (or 45 hours), and also
eliminated an 11th grade English/
language arts test.
And in Ohio, the 2015-17 state budget adopted in late June changed state
policy to allow for just one testing window for state exams. It also required
an unspecified reduction in the length
of state tests. But other specific proposals from state officials, including a
three-hour cap on certain exams and
a 2 percent limit on the share of the
school year that could be set aside for
state, districtwide, and other exams,
didn't make it into the budget.
Elsewhere, Massachusetts House
Bill 340, introduced by Democratic
state Rep. Marjorie Decker and
backed by the 110,000-member Massachusetts Teachers Association,
would impose a three-year moratorium on the use of state standardized
tests like the parcc and Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment
System in graduation decisions or
teacher evaluations. The moratorium
on such high stakes testing would

create an opening for broader discussions about testing, said Barbara Madaloni, the mta president.
"[If] we eliminate the high stakes,
we're going to eliminate overtesting,"
Ms. Madaloni said.
The Massachusetts bill would also
create a task force to examine testing;
Maryland and North Carolina have
recently created similar commissions.
But it's local schools that are best positioned to cut unnecessary testing,
while ensuring that high-quality tests
like parcc are preserved, said Lindsay
Sobel, the executive director of the
Massachusetts chapter of TeachPlus,

We learn almost every
month of a new band
of testing. So now I
understand why
parents are
frustrated."
DALE ERQUIAGA
Nevada State Superintendent

which provides leadership programs
and policy fellowships to teachers.
"A good solution is to have districts
do audits of all of their tests they are
giving, and make sure there isn't duplication in testing," Ms. Sobel said.

Counting Tests
That's precisely what a few Illinois
districts have done over the past year,
with the support of the Illinois state
school board.
Through a representative sample
of parents, teachers, students, and
administrators from 52 districts, a
task force identified 17 tests that
districts gave to fulfill state and
federal mandates. And 16 of those
tests, in turn, were also used to "fulfill local purposes." On average, districts used roughly two nonrequired
standardized tests other than the
state's English/language arts and
math tests to fulfill federal and state
mandates, and roughly one such test
for local purposes.

The districts' inventory program
was modeled on Achieve's Student
Assessment Inventory for School
Districts. The rubric asks for 25 data
points about each test, including who
uses it and how much it costs. Districts can also alter the provided data
points at their discretion.
Diana Zaleski, the state board's
assessment project administrator,
said the board, as well as Achieve,
worked with districts to help them
focus not just on individual tests, but
how the districts' benchmark, formative, and summative tests did (or did
not) work together to create a strong
testing system.
"We're very supportive of districtcreated common assessments, and
making sure that teachers are empowered and are supported and have
the resources to create high-quality
assessments," Ms. Zaleski said.
The pilot districts had different reasons for cataloging and reconsidering
their tests.
Mr. Owen of the Urbana district decided to participate in part because
it would help the district's periodic
reviews of assessment, not because
of any pushback to testing from community members or teachers.
But Jeff Craig, the superintendent
of the 13,000-student West Aurora
School District 129, said some teachers stressed that,"We have a lot of assessment for our kids, and we spend
a lot of time with those assessments,
and it eats into our instruction time."
That sentiment was part of the district's motivation to participate in the
inventory pilot, which found, for example, that 8th graders, on average,
took 23 hours of tests per year.
Mr. Owen said he favored performance-based assessments and looked
more skeptically at off-the-shelf
exams used in his district.
As a result of the inventory process,
the Urbana district could soon eliminate a few benchmark tests given to
students early in the school year, although final decisions about test reduction haven't been made. And Mr.
Craig's West Aurora district is looking
to end required administration of literacy and English-language-learner
tests, as well as the act Explore exam.
At the same time, Kathleen Kostos, West Aurora's director of assessment, noted that the district doesn't
want to prohibit individual teachers
from administering tests the dis-

trict no longer requires if they find
them useful in certain instances.
Districts also face choices about
how to tell the public and their staff
members about testing decisions.
Whatever it decides, the Urbana
district doesn't plan to publicize how
many tests it will cut or how many
hours of testing it will eliminate-Mr.
Owen said it's a "false pretense that
I don't want to get caught up in." He
also said the district wants to gradually phase out tests over more than
one school year, in order to create a
less-abrupt transition for teachers.
By contrast, West Aurora's Ms.
Kostos said that at the start of the
2015-16 school year, the districts will
send out a newsletter to staff highlighting tests the district will stop
requiring, and the estimated number
of testing hours the district has cut.
Ms. Zaleski also hopes the inventories would help focus attention on
teachers' professional development
needs. And the state wants districts
to continuously track the number
and type of assessments they use,
and not to stop after they take an inventory of tests just once.
"They're seeing that there's a need
to streamline their assessment systems," Ms. Zaleski said of districts.

'Why Parents Are Frustrated'
But streamlining testing regimens
can often lead to broader and more
anxiety-filled discussions at the state
level.
During a June meeting of North
Carolina's Task Force on Summative Assessment, Wayne Foster, a researcher at the 53,000-student Winston-Salem/Forsyth County schools,
representing elementary schools in the
group, said that, "Overtesting is driving a lot of what I'm thinking about."
He also raised the idea that shorter
tests and a reduced focus on summative exams might help students.
And in Nevada, state Superintendent Dale Erquiaga said the state's
technical problems administering the
Smarter Balanced exam has forced
him to rethink the place of tests in
schools, even though he wants testing
to be an important tool for schools.
In characterizing how many tests
Nevada schools give, Mr. Erquiaga
said, "We learn almost every month
of a new band of testing. So now I understand why parents are frustrated."

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