In 2009-10, 95 percent of Michigan third-graders passed the Michigan Educational Assessment Program tests in math, and 90 percent passed the MEAP reading test.
So does that mean nine of every 10 Michigan third-graders are performing at grade level?
Don’t be silly.
In fact, in a seeming effort to meet the demands of No Child Left Behind — the federal law that expects 100 percent passage rates on state assessment tests by 2014 — Michigan has been gradually lowering the “cut score” on its tests. The cut score is the number of answers that students must get right to be deemed proficient.
In 2009, there were MEAP tests in which students could get 60 percent of the answers wrong and still pass. Even some superintendents — whose jobs often hinge on achieving strong test scores — were complaining that the MEAP results were wildly inflated.
So last week, the Michigan Board of Education agreed to raise the cut scores, probably for 2011-12. Exactly what those new standards will be, however, is unclear; the board now has to draft a plan.
The decision has gotten mixed reaction from Michigan educators.
Certainly this means MEAP results are likely to take a dip or perhaps even a dive next year — and school officials are bracing themselves for the anticipated blowback from the public when a trend of rising scores takes a sharp turn.
On the other hand, there’s something to be said for having a more accurate assessment. “I applaud Michigan for being honest with students on where they stand,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said last week in response to the state school board’s vote. “Michigan’s education leaders are putting kids first by taking critical steps to help them compete in a global economy.”
For parents and taxpayers, I think there are two important messages in what’s happening here:
One is a cautionary tale about the law of unintended consequences. No Child Left Behind was intended to raise the bar for American education. Yet by mandating that every child needed to pass state assessment tests by 2014 — a laughably impossible standard — it created a strong incentive for states to water down their tests. The lowering of MEAP cut scores is not an isolated event; it’s a trend documented across the country.
The inflation of MEAP scores also shows the fallibility of assessment tests in general and the MEAP in specific. The quality of test results depends on the quality of the test — and the MEAP has a lot of critics who complain that it isn’t very useful because it’s neither norm- nor criteria-referenced.
An example of a norm-referenced test is the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, where students are scored on how they compare to test-takers in the past; for instance, scoring in the 60th percentile means the student scored higher than 60 percent of past test-takers and lower than 40 percent. Examples of a criteria-referenced test are the ACT and SAT, where the score is based on the number of correct answers. By contrast, the MEAP is a pass/fail test in which the standard for passing is a continually moving target.
The real issue here is that state assessment tests have become a political yardstick, when what we really need is an accurate measure of Michigan student achievement.
But if we get an honest accounting, can we handle the truth?
Julie Mack is a reporter for the Kalamazoo Gazette. Contact her at email@example.com or 269-388-8578, or follow her on Twitter.com at Twitter.com/kzjuliemack. She also writes a blog called School Zone at http://blog.mlive.com/schoolzone.