High Stakes Testing and Science Learning Assessment

An argument is made for use of interactive computer application as a vehicle for incorporating more authentic assessments of students' of inquiry into standardized testing. Standardized tests within high stakes testing programs clearly act as a dominant force in current streams of thought and politic shaping American K-12 education. In a recent publication (Huber and Moore, 2000) we argued that science supervisors would be well advised to work towards ensuring that well meaning but misguided efforts to promote educational reform through standardized testing do not undermine true standards-based reforms-that is, reforms consistent with those envisioned in National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996). In that article we discussed how Standards foresaw potential for problems arising out of poorly conceived implementations of standardized testing and warned community about themand provided guidance on how to prevent or mitigate some of potential damages poorly conceived testing programs might cause. Among guidance provided in Standards are admonitions to science supervisors to champion cause for use of appropriate and valid assessment tools. (For purposes of this discussion, appropriate tools are defined as those that purport to measure achievement of objectives congruent with Standards; valid tools are those that do measure what they purport to measure). In this paper, we provide a follow-up to our previous discussion on threat of high stakes testing with recommendations on how science supervisors might mitigate negative impact of high stakes accountability testing by championing cause for development and use of more appropriate and valid assessment tools. Specifically, this paper discusses possibly beneficial roles of new interactive Internet technologies as tools for assessing inquiry-based science learning. Standardized tests within high stakes testing programs clearly act as a dominant force in current streams of thought and politic shaping American K-12 education. In our previous article, we described how accountability testing was a strong and growing force, noting President Clinton's endorsement of accountability testing as an indication of breadth of support for testing. Since that time, emphasis on using standardized tests in accountability testing has increased, and federal support for testing of students at all grades has increased under Bush administration. Clearly, high stakes accountability testing is not a passing fad. It is equally clear that many of changes wrought by testing-based reform initiatives are antithetical to goals of Standards. To a substantial degree, standardized testing is growing as a driving force in establishing curriculum goals and methods of instruction (Brady, 2000; Brandt, 1989; CNN, 1999; Jones et al., 1999; Huber and Moore, 2000; Kohn, 2001; Kunen, 1997; Merrow, 2001; Neill, 1998; Shapiro, 1998). As aptly stated in one popular press publication, high stakes accountability testing has become, the latest silver bullet designed to cure all that ails public education (Kunen, 1997, p. 24). Others have more strongly condemned current accountability testing practices. Kohn (2001), for example, refers to standardized testing as a monster which makes it ... difficult, perhaps even impossible, to pursue kinds of reforms that can truly improve teaching and learning (p. 350). The central problem with current use of standardized tests within accountability testing is two fold. First, as noted above, tests play a strong part in shaping curriculum. Secondly tests typically assess wrong stuff. Tests typically emphasize wrong content because all too often that which is easy to assess is not that which is important to learn, especially in sciences. …