blog : October 2012
The Alternative to Standardized Testing:
Performance Assessment
10/26/2012
When I began my teaching career 25 years ago, as a fresh-faced college graduate,
I was trained to view performance assessment as the best means to determine
the skill level and achievement of my students. More traditional assessments, like
multiple choice quizzes and tests, were discouraged because these did not meet
diverse needs of all students and were less effective measures. Today, performance
assessment is still identified as the most effective tool for determining student
achievement because it manifests what all assessment should be: reliable, varied,
and fair.
Yet we do not use performance assessment for large-scale evaluation – sometimes
we don’t even use it for small-scale evaluations. Why? Because performance
assessment is assumed to be more expensive than standardized testing. But is
it really? No Child Left Behind has produced a standardized testing industry in
our country. And this is in spite of the fact that standardized testing is an inferior
assessment. It is unfair and inadequate. Consider the following:
- Standardized testing is historically ridden with race, economic and gender biases.
- Standardized testing does not meet the needs of diverse learners.
- Standardized tests measure factual (though fragmented) knowledge in some subject areas while totally ignoring others.
- Standardized testing does not attempt to measure creative thinking and problem solving skills.
Recently, a report from New York Performance Standards Consortium, found that
performance assessments in the Consortium schools were a superior indicator
in determining student achievement. How does it work?
Education for the 21st Century explains that the PBATs (Performance Based
Assessment Tasks) “emerge from class readings and discussion. In some
classes, the tasks are crafted by the teacher and in other instances by the
student.” For example, in literature each student must write and then orally
defend an analytic paper based on defined requirements. The report includes
samples of the wide range of literature and interests addressed by the
students, as well as similar samples for the other required tasks. In the oral
defense for each PBAT, the student responds to questions from a panel of
teachers and outside experts.
All the tasks and defenses completed for the common graduation
requirement are evaluated using Consortium-wide scoring guides
("rubrics"). The report includes the rubrics used to evaluate tasks and
defenses. These well-developed assessment standards, written and revised
as needed by Consortium teachers, allow accurate evaluations of student
work across schools. Samples of the work are independently re-scored
(“moderation”) to evaluate both reliability of scoring and the challenge level
of teacher assignments.
The report also shares evidence of an increased acceptance into four-year colleges,
and an increased success rate in those students accepted to four-year colleges. This
is on top of a significantly reduced drop-out rate, and reduced number of discipline
issues. In fact, the Consortium schools consistently outperform other New York
City public schools that serve similar populations. It’s hard to believe there isn’t a
correlation between their adoption of performance assessments and their success
rate.
I believe that the single most important different between performance assessments
and standardized test assessments is that teachers are integral to the creation and
implementation of the former. Teachers, and their influence, are conspicuously
absent in NCLB standardized test assessments. This erodes the integrity of the
teaching profession. Unlike performance assessments, the assembly-line procedure
of standardized test taking does not allow students to demonstrate their developing
skills and concept knowledge. Instead, standardized testing minimizes students’
creative thinking and, as such, is a direct threat to the demands of our democratic
society. It’s a perfect example of “penny wise and pound foolish”.
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