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In Defense of Testing -- The First Seven Years
- By Richard Phelps Editor In Defense of Testing Series EdNews.org
- Published 05/8/2007
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Richard Phelps Editor In Defense of Testing Series EdNews.org
The In Defense of Testing series has run weekly since the summer of 2000. Its purpose has been to provide some counterbalance to the media's tendency to cover only one side of the issue. Please feel free to submit material for this series to [email protected]. Richard P. Phelps is author or editor of four books, including The Anti-Testing Fallacies (American Psychological Assn), Standardized Testing Primer (Lang), and Defending Standardized Testing (Erlbaum) and is a member of Third Education Group.
by Richard P. Phelps
Editor In Defense of Testing Series EdNews.org
Next week I will introduce the wise folk from the Center for Educational Assessment at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Beginning two weeks from today, responsibility for the In Defense of Testing series shall rest in their most capable hands.
I have managed the weekly In Defense of Testing series at EdNews.org for seven years. Typically, I posted the work of others -- usually from among the many standardized testing experts that mainstream education journalists tend to ignore.
The series began in 2000 – a unique moment in U.S. history. For the first and, perhaps, last time, standardized testing held a lead role among presidential campaign issues. This presented a unique opportunity for testing proponents to counter the standard anti-testing diatribes, and to reveal and showcase the abundance of research evidence on the benefits of standardized and, in particular, high-stakes testing.
The usual suspects published several anti-testing books and several dozen anti-testing articles in 2000, with their authors frequently cited and interviewed in the media. The flurry culminated in the "October Surprise" attack on candidate Bush's Texas testing program. The attack was composed by four researchers from the federally-funded Center for Research on Education Standards and Student Testing (CRESST) and published by one of the three CRESST organizational affiliates, the Rand Corporation.
To a discerning psychometrician, the October Surprise report was transparently biased and easy to refute, and the then-new In Defense of Testing series effectively carried out that basic task in late October 2000. By contrast, the reaction from Republican research and policy advisors was diffident at best.
During the intervening years, the current administration's Institute of Education Sciences renewed the multi-million dollar contract of its former nemesis CRESST for another several years.
Authors of the unabashedly antagonistic October Surprise report have been employed by the current administration's Education Department and its affiliated think tanks to assume a variety of roles – e.g., to serve on important decision-making commissions and panels, as co-authors of subsidized books and reports, or as experts to be often cited or consulted on research projects.
Meanwhile, what account was made of the vast research literature on the benefits of high-stakes standardized testing that the CRESST folk have insisted for decades has never existed? Ironically and perhaps inexplicably, over the past several years Republican research and policy people have reiterated their opponents' assertion many times -- declaring nonexistent any and all research on the benefits of standardized testing that had been conducted prior to a few years ago (when they, themselves, became involved in the research effort).
Arguably, standardized testing is the current U.S. federal administration's key education policy instrument. Nonetheless, its own research and policy advisors have consistently claimed that the administration had no valid reason to assume in 2000 that its most essential education policy instrument would do any good. In other spheres of public policy the current federal administration has been characterized as stubbornly loyal to its close friends and supporters. By contrast, on this particular issue, it has been stubbornly loyal to some of its strongest detractors.
Go figure. And, if and when you arrive at some explanation for this history and behavior, please let me in on it.
Adios and Best Wishes,
P.S. I wish to salute Jimmy Kilpatrick, the force majeure of EdNews.org. He and I agree on few education or social policy issues. Still, he and I agree that a healthy democracy depends on a free and open discussion of the issues, during which all points of view can be expressed and are heard. Our society would be so much better off if there were more like him.
Published May 8, 2007
Editor In Defense of Testing Series EdNews.org
Next week I will introduce the wise folk from the Center for Educational Assessment at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Beginning two weeks from today, responsibility for the In Defense of Testing series shall rest in their most capable hands.
I have managed the weekly In Defense of Testing series at EdNews.org for seven years. Typically, I posted the work of others -- usually from among the many standardized testing experts that mainstream education journalists tend to ignore.
The series began in 2000 – a unique moment in U.S. history. For the first and, perhaps, last time, standardized testing held a lead role among presidential campaign issues. This presented a unique opportunity for testing proponents to counter the standard anti-testing diatribes, and to reveal and showcase the abundance of research evidence on the benefits of standardized and, in particular, high-stakes testing.
The usual suspects published several anti-testing books and several dozen anti-testing articles in 2000, with their authors frequently cited and interviewed in the media. The flurry culminated in the "October Surprise" attack on candidate Bush's Texas testing program. The attack was composed by four researchers from the federally-funded Center for Research on Education Standards and Student Testing (CRESST) and published by one of the three CRESST organizational affiliates, the Rand Corporation.
To a discerning psychometrician, the October Surprise report was transparently biased and easy to refute, and the then-new In Defense of Testing series effectively carried out that basic task in late October 2000. By contrast, the reaction from Republican research and policy advisors was diffident at best.
During the intervening years, the current administration's Institute of Education Sciences renewed the multi-million dollar contract of its former nemesis CRESST for another several years.
Meanwhile, what account was made of the vast research literature on the benefits of high-stakes standardized testing that the CRESST folk have insisted for decades has never existed? Ironically and perhaps inexplicably, over the past several years Republican research and policy people have reiterated their opponents' assertion many times -- declaring nonexistent any and all research on the benefits of standardized testing that had been conducted prior to a few years ago (when they, themselves, became involved in the research effort).
Arguably, standardized testing is the current U.S. federal administration's key education policy instrument. Nonetheless, its own research and policy advisors have consistently claimed that the administration had no valid reason to assume in 2000 that its most essential education policy instrument would do any good. In other spheres of public policy the current federal administration has been characterized as stubbornly loyal to its close friends and supporters. By contrast, on this particular issue, it has been stubbornly loyal to some of its strongest detractors.
Go figure. And, if and when you arrive at some explanation for this history and behavior, please let me in on it.
Adios and Best Wishes,
P.S. I wish to salute Jimmy Kilpatrick, the force majeure of EdNews.org. He and I agree on few education or social policy issues. Still, he and I agree that a healthy democracy depends on a free and open discussion of the issues, during which all points of view can be expressed and are heard. Our society would be so much better off if there were more like him.
Published May 8, 2007
