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High-Stakes Testing

High-stakes tests are tests used to make important decisions about students. These include whether students should be promoted, allowed to graduate, or admitted to programs. High-stakes assessments are considered a natural outcome of the standards movement in the U.S. The declared purpose of the standards movement is to make students, teachers, and administrators responsible for a high standard of teaching and learning (Heubert, 2000). High-stakes tests are designed to measure whether or not content and performance standards established by the state have been achieved.

1. What is "adequate yearly progress" (AYP), and why is it so important?
2. What are mainstream, content-based standards?
3. What accommodations can be made for testing English language learners?
4. Are the tests culturally responsive?
5. When and how should students be assessed to determine if they have special needs?

1. What is "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) and why is it so important? Adequate yearly progress (AYP) refers to the amount of progress that must be shown by a school, and for designated subgroups within a school, according to the No Child Left Behind Act. Individual states must develop standards in the core content-areas of reading, math, and science to determine what AYP is. There are many consequences for schools that do not show adequate progress. Schools that do not do well may be given technical assistance. If schools do not meet the objectives for performance as a result of this assistance, they then face more serious consequences.

In February 2004, a new AYP policy was announced that pertains to Limited English Proficient (LEP) students, the Department of Education's title for English language learners, a designated sub-group in many schools. The new policy allows schools to substitute an assessment of English language proficiency for the assessment of reading competency during a student's first year in U.S. public schools. This English language proficiency test does not count toward the Adequate Yearly Progress goals for the school. Students who take the test do, however, continue to count toward the required 95 percent participation rate in high-stakes testing for their subgroup (LEP students) to make sure that English language learners are counted as participants in the assessment system.

A second policy change addresses the way in which schools classify students who have made a great deal of progress in learning English. This change allows schools to continue to count the high-stakes test scores of students who are no longer classified as LEP, because they have attained English proficiency, in the LEP subgroup for two additional years after they have become English proficient.

The U.S. Department of Education's Web site for the No Child Left Behind Act includes information on the following:

• Making Gains Every Year
  http://www.ed.gov/nclb/accountability/ayp/
  yearly.html
• Measuring Progress
  http://www.ed.gov/nclb/accountability/ayp/
  testing.html
• Frequently Asked Questions
  http://www.ed.gov/nclb/accountability/ayp/
  testing-faq.html
• Key Policy Letters Signed by the Education Secretary
  http://www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/
  guid/secletter/020724.html

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2. What are mainstream, content-based standards? Mainstream content-based standards are those developed by professional organizations of educators for different subject areas, including reading and language arts. State and commonwealth departments of education have developed their own benchmarks using the national standards as a guide. Some states and commonwealths have also created standards designed specifically for English language learners.

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3. What accommodations can be made for testing English language learners? According to the No Child Left Behind Act, 95 percent of a public school's student population must participate in the school's assessment program. English language learners with limited English language skills and students with severe disabilities may be exempted from this requirement. Parents may petition to have a child excluded if they feel that a test conflicts with religious practices. Although 95 percent of students must be tested, schools may provide accommodations for certain students and still comply with the 95 percent rule.

There are two cases in which ELLs might require testing accommodations tailored to their circumstances. The first is if their teachers and specialists have determined that their English language proficiency is insufficient for testing without accommodations. Each state has different criteria for determining when ELLs qualify for testing accommodations. The George Washington University Center for Equity and Excellence in Education offers a database listing each state's policies regarding modification on high-stakes tests for ELLs. This information is available at: ceee.gwu.edu/AA/BestPractices.pdf

The second case in which accommodations are warranted is when ELLs, in addition to being second language learners, have separate educational needs that warrant accommodations. Such needs may be physical or psychiatric in nature, or related to a learning disability. The Americans with Disabilities Act protects all students with special educational needs and has laid the groundwork for appropriate accommodations for these students. Proponents of the act have succeeded in ensuring that students with special needs are given the same accommodations in high-stakes testing situations as they get in the classroom. As part of this same effort, testing accommodations have been extended to ELLs in recent years. Bear in mind that whatever a student's special needs and circumstances are, they must be thoroughly documented. For more information on special needs assessment, see Question 5 below.

Furthermore, due to provisions set forth in the Americans with Disabilities Act, the courts have determined that testing agencies such as the Educational Testing Service (ETS) may not report to colleges about a student's testing accommodations. ETS may be contacted for answers to frequently asked questions about the process of obtaining accommodations for students with special needs.

A variety of accommodations are available to make testing situations more equitable for ELLs and students with special needs. Proctors can:

• provide extra time for testing
• read test instructions aloud
• make sure students comprehend the instructions
• read the writing and math test items aloud
• provide extra breaks during testing
• provide a testing environment with fewer students and potential distractions

Research has established that testing accommodations do help individuals with special needs (Thompson, Blount, & Thurlow, 2002). Accommodations are designed to level the playing field between students with and without special needs. Testing accommodations should not be used to give students an unfair advantage over other students not receiving them. It is up to each state and school district to determine which students merit accommodations and which accommodations should be extended.

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4. Are the tests culturally responsive? Since culture and cultural content are inextricably woven into language, culture-free testing does not exist. Even nonverbal tests can have cultural assumptions embedded in them. Rather than trying to make tests culture-free, therefore, the challenge is to make them culturally responsive.

Culturally responsive tests have content that is first and foremost comprehensible to the learner. The issue of cultural comprehensibility is complex. In an increasingly multicultural world, most students, including English language learners, will encounter content from many different cultures as part of their schooling. This shift towards cultural pluralism and diversity is to be celebrated. However, test items are usually intended to assess a student's comprehension of academic materials, not their understanding of culture. ELLs cannot be assumed to have background knowledge of cultures different from their own.

Second, culturally responsive tests should contain no elements that convey a cultural bias. Cultural bias in testing exists when the following sorts of circumstances come into play: when preferential treatment is given to members of one group over another, when members of one group know processes that members of another group do not, or when students are not provided the background information they need to grasp the foreign cultural nuances of the subject matter on the test. According to Hambleton and Rodgers (1995), bias in testing materials can exist with reference to ethnicity, sex, culture, religion, class, or processes, and has the potential to benefit some test-takers and disadvantage others.

It is important, therefore, for curriculum developers and test writers to make sure ELLs can figure out the cultural content of test questions through context. Depending on an ELL's cultural heritage, what may be commonplace in most corners of the U.S. may be completely unfamiliar to the student.

Given the following sentence, it would be almost impossible for an Arabic-speaking ELL who had just arrived in the U.S. to figure out the meaning of the words "tamales" and "tacos":

"Linda had 3 tamales and 2 tacos before noon."

Note that with two minor changes it becomes clear that "tamales" and "tacos" refer to food.

"Linda ate 3 tamales and 2 tacos for lunch."

The words "ate" and "lunch" make it possible for the reader to infer that the words "tamales" and "tacos" refer to food items.

Other subtler aspects of culture -- such as the concept of credit -- can further confuse ELLs. Many students come from countries and cultures that operate on a cash economy where credit is never used for financial transactions. In such countries the majority of people have no credit cards or checking accounts, but line up to receive salary or pay rent. The notion of paying for something with plastic money might be foreign to students from such countries. Although these ELLs may know what a credit card looks like, they are less likely to understand the concept of credit as well as their peers who have grown up in the U.S. Compared to their U.S.-raised counterparts, these ELLs would have difficulty fathoming that interest is like "rent" paid to use money.

The following example is a word problem that would challenge a student born and raised in the U.S. Consider how much harder it would be for an ELL who has grown up in Belarus, a small country in eastern Europe, where cash is the only negotiable currency.

"Oscar bought a new sweater that cost two hundred dollars. He paid for the sweater with a credit card with a simple interest rate of 1.7 percent per month and a ten dollar fee for late payments. If Oscar's first payment of $50 was late, what would be the balance on his next monthly statement?"

This word problem could be made more comprehensible for ELLs by adding an explanation of late charges and interest. The curriculum could also be modified to ensure that ELLs have a thorough understanding not only of the language, but also of the underlying concepts involved.

There are times when it is appropriate for a test item to assess a student's mastery of cultural content. It is thus important at the outset to decide if the aim of the test item is to assess the student's knowledge of culture, or whether the test item simply assumes the student already understands the cultural content of the question. Following is an example of text that could be construed as culturally biased:

"One of the most important speeches was given by Lincoln."

If the purpose of this sentence is to assess whether or not the students remember from their course of study that Lincoln was a famous U.S. president, the sentence is fine as written. If its aim is to determine something else, however, it could be considered culturally biased against ELLs, who could easily lack background knowledge about U.S. presidents. To correct the problem, the sentence could be rewritten to read:

"One of the most important speeches in U.S. history was given by President Lincoln."

Listed below are questions to help determine if a test is culturally biased or culturally responsive:

• Are there enough supporting details so that students can comprehend the cultural content being provided?
• Do the testing materials show bias that relates to ethnicity, sex, culture, religion, class, or processes?
• Have members of different cultural groups been represented?
• Are members of different cultural groups positively portrayed?
• Have the test developers made sure that the cultural content is comprehensible to all the test takers?
• Is cultural content about the students' home culture and language accurate and up-to-date?
• Are members of different class groups positively portrayed?
• Are there traditional and non-traditional depictions of gender?

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5. When and how should students be assessed to determine if they have special needs? It is often difficult for teachers working with English language learners to determine if a student has special needs. If an ELL is not progressing academically, the teacher needs to establish if the child is struggling because English is a new language or because the child has special needs. With the sustained use of focused second-language methodologies, some children will catch up academically. In other cases, however, a true exceptionality exists and a special education referral needs to be made.

Cultural and linguistic factors need to be taken into account before a special education referral and special education assessment is made. The first step in the process is the pre-referral. Listed below are types of questions to assist educators through all stages of the referral process, including the pre-referral. By addressing the issues that follow, you may be able to avoid the referral completely.

Both the bilingual support staff and the special education team should collaborate to provide the best possible services for all culturally and linguistically diverse students, including those who are ELLs (Baca & de Valenzuela, 1996). These services can involve classroom instruction from both ESL and special education staff. The fact that a child is receiving ESL or bilingual services does not mean that the child is ineligible for special education services, including proper assessment.

According to Burnette (2000), there are four basic principles to follow when conducting a special-needs assessment of ELLs:

• The assessment team should be multidisciplinary and include individuals familiar with the student's culture and language.
• A comprehensive pre-referral should be conducted to insure that the student's difficulties are not cultural or linguistic in nature.
• The student's dominant language should be ascertained and used in the testing.
• The assessment itself should be tailored to the student, multidimensional, and culturally and linguistically non-biased.

    The Role of Culture. The role that culture plays in every stage of the pre-referral, referral, and assessment process cannot be overemphasized. As Cole (n.d.) pointed out, culture-free intelligence testing does not exist. Therefore, as Baca and de Valenzuela (1996) emphasized, professionals involved with culturally and linguistically diverse students must be equipped with the proper training and skills.

    Academic Difficulties. If students are having specific academic problems, it is necessary to determine if language, culture, prior academic training, or some combination of these factors may be the cause.

Reading and Learning Difficulties:

• What types of errors are the student making in reading?
• Are the errors due to differences between the child's native and second language? For example, does the student say the "l" instead of the "r" sound, which is common among Asian speakers?
• Does the student read and write a language that uses non-Roman or non-Latin letters? Cyrillic, for example, includes a number of letters that look like reversed Roman or Latin letters. Please note that interferences of this sort are almost always temporary and the advantages of having literacy skills in one's own, as well as a second, language far outweigh any temporary shortcomings.
• Is the student having trouble doing computational math? Many countries, including the former Soviet Union, teach methods of computation different from those used in the U.S.
• Is the student having trouble with word problems? Word problems are especially difficult for ELLs because of the complex linguistic structures used and because of the cultural and economic perspectives they often assume.

    Difficulty Paying Attention. Children can easily get bored and fidget if they do not understand what is going on or if the tasks given them are either too easy or too challenging. Some children coming to the U.S. from abroad have to contend with boredom when the math computational tasks they are given reflect skills they mastered years earlier.

• Is the language level and content appropriate for the child?
• Does the student comprehend it?
• Are the tasks clear?
• Is enough context provided for the student to know how to complete the tasks?
• Do the tasks build on, rather than repeat, the student's prior academic experiences?

If learners don't understand what is going on, it is only natural for their attention to wander.

    Difficulty Adhering to Behavioral Expectations. In some cultures, children are expected to be quiet in the classroom, but are allowed to make noise going from one class to the next. Expectations for class participation, group and individual work, and politeness may also have been different in ELLs' schools previous schools.

• Do the student and his or her family have an adequate understanding of the school's rules, behavioral expectations, and consequences for inappropriate behavior?
• Is the child a refugee or immigrant who might suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder?

    Communication Difficulties. A child may know an English dialect -- such as those spoken in India, Pakistan, or West Africa -- which is different from what is considered Standard English usage in the U.S.

• How many languages and dialects has the child been exposed to?
• Does the child speak?

    Dis-fluency. Are there cultural factors or discourse styles that are different from English? In some cultures children are expected to be quiet in school or to limit their verbal participation to answering teachers' questions. In addition, limited proficiency in English may cause halting speech or unconventional word order

    Hearing and Vision Loss. One of the most important things to do before a child is referred to special education is to determine if that child has hearing loss or vision problems.

• Hearing Loss - It is necessary for a teacher to ask whether the student's background might have made him or her vulnerable to potential hearing loss. For example, refugee children may have been exposed to loud noises such as gunfire or bombs. Some ELLs may have suffered from multiple or severe ear infections that went untreated due to lack of adequate medical care. Loud noises and untreated ear infections can lead to hearing loss.
      Basic screenings are superficial and may not pick up all the possible nuances of hearing loss. A more comprehensive check is often necessary.
• Visual Impairments - It is equally important to note if the child is showing any signs of visual impairment. Does the child squint or blink a lot, rub his or her eyes, have trouble copying from the board, or show any other signs of visual problems? A student may inadvertently foil a routine school eye exam by not knowing, or mispronouncing, the symbols used to test him or by listening to the previous students and parroting their answers. ELLs may use "follow the leader" strategies they have developed to cope with operating in a second language. Since the eye exam is not a paper and pencil test, they do not always see this as cheating or understand how it prevents a proper diagnosis.

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References:

[return]  Baca, L., & de Valenzuela, J.S. (1996). Practical and theoretical considerations for assessment of culturally and linguistically diverse students. Available: http://www.alliance2k.org/products/4005.pdf

[return]  Burnette, J. (2000). Assessment of culturally and linguistically diverse students for special education eligibility (ERIC EC Digest #E604). Arlington, VA: ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education. Available: http://ericec.org/digests/e604.html

[return]  Cole, M. (n.d.). The illusion of culture-free intelligence testing. Available from the University of California, San Diego, Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition: http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Cole/iq.html

[return]  Hambleton, R.K., & Rodgers, J.H. (1995). Item bias review. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 4(6). Available: http://PAREonline.net/getvn.asp?v=4&n=6

[return]  Heubert, J. P. (2000). High-stakes testing: Opportunities and risks for students of color, English-language learners, and students with disabilities. Available from the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST): http://www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_highstakes.html

[return]  Thompson, S., Blount, A, & Thurlow, M. (2002). A summary of research on the effects of test accommodations: 1999 through 2001. Available from the University of Minnesota, National Center of Educational Outcomes: http://education.umn.edu/nceo/OnlinePubs/Technical34.htm

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