Three separate stories about high stakes testing, computers, servers and data.
1. Evidence indicates that some students who take high stakes tests on computers do worse than similar students who use pencil and paper versions.
Hard numbers from across the consortium are not yet available. But the advantage for paper-and-pencil test-takers appears in some cases to be substantial, based on independent analyses conducted by one prominent PARCC state and a high-profile school district that administered the exams.
It’ll take more information to determine the computer effect on test scores, but it’s fairly obvious that students who aren’t comfortable using computers and have to take on-screen versions of the tests are going to face obstacles which can lower their scores. If they’re occasional computer users, the acts of scrolling through the test, clicking the right answer, then clicking on the next question (or doing similar actions using a touch screen) will demand concentration that will take away from their ability to give their full attention to the test, and will slow them down at the same time. Have you ever tried using your computer mouse with your “wrong” hand? I’ve logged thousands of hours in front of the computer, so basic tasks take no more thought from me than turning the pages of a book, but the few times I’ve tried to use my mouse left handed, I got confused about which direction to move it and where to click, which drew my attention away from what I was doing on the computer and made it more difficult to concentrate on the texts I was moving through. I’m sure if I had to take a challenging test on a computer with the mouse in my left hand, my concentration would be divided, my frustration level would skyrocket and my score would drop significantly.
Generally, the least computer literate students are low income kids who don’t have ready access to computers and the internet at home, so if they have to take their tests on a computer, they have yet another handicap when high stakes test time rolls around.
2. At the University of Kansas, a backhoe cut into the cable that provides its internet connection, meaning the university’s Center for Educational Testing & Evaluation was off line. Kansas students who were taking the state tests were cut off. The next day, they picked up where they left off — the server saved all their answers to that point — but because the system still wasn’t at full capacity, it went down again. Alaska, which also uses the University of Kansas system, decided to cancel the state testing for the year because they thought the system was too unreliable to use.
The year before, Kansas had to suspend the state exams because hackers got into the system and rendered it inoperable.
3. Because of a computer problem, 14,200 standardized tests in Texas were erased.
Last Tuesday, the first day of STAAR testing, the American-Statesman first reported that at least four school districts in Central Texas — Austin, Hays Consolidated, Hutto and Harper — said that students taking the writing STAAR had received an error message after submitting completed tests online. After logging back in, the students’ multiple choice answers — and in at least in one case, the essay — had disappeared. Students who logged out temporarily for breaks also were affected.
The state later confirmed that districts statewide were experiencing similar problems and that students wouldn’t be penalized for the glitch, leaving it up to the school district to decide whether to retest affected students. Some students were retested, Morath said Wednesday.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2016.
I recently heard that one distinguished TUSD primary educator was appalled at the fact that primary kids will soon be forced to take tests on computers in the district. Someone with decades of experience in the field thinks this is a travesty and will cause trauma to students this age.
So what’s up with that, David?
Oh, sorry, I forgot. This is the recommended response for Democratic party loyalists to concerns raised about what is happening in TUSD being in violation of progressive educational or progressive political ideals: SILENCE.
Those who speak up will be DISCIPLINED and PUNISHED.
“Oh , sorry,” but these relentless, hate-filled, reactionary diatribes against the schools are getting old – even abnormal. TUSD is still a place populated by kids, from preschoolers though high schoolers, who want no fight with political screamers or opinionated bullies. The kids are still learning their place in the world, and it is just a shame that they are indirectly in the line of such haters – hating any/all who dare disagree about how to improve the future of all of our kids.
Education’s not empirical, not a “thing” but a “process.” Computers can be a useful tool for research, but are NOT the whole program. Especially, when the district’s paying royalties and maintenance fees that could have been better used for teacher salaries. If TUSD hasn’t switched to LINUX by now, they’re wasting our kid’s future.
Bob Atkinson
Tucson
Haters is such a foolish claim. Don’t expect one political party to transform education to their liking without a fight from the other side. It has become evident that elected officials have usurped too much power. They have pushed parents out of the formula, although some parents are also to blame.
First before more – I think high stakes testing without recourse is highly problematic. Nations like France have suffered when a single test or a battery of eliminating tests have stopped a person’s contribution to society. Next and final – there is nothing foolish about hating something or someone – if it fits. Sure, TUSD has problems, but constant harping and politically hating the entire entity is counterproductive and it really can hurt innocent little kids. Attempts at constructive criticism, thoughtful commentary and discussing current issues (which I do see in TW articles) get deflected immediately into a dirty play, partisan no man’s land. Sharpened axes pop up, comments turn ugly and political insults fly. If it fits…
There is a mixture of perspectives represented in these comment streams. Some are in the “government schools are bad” camp. Some are in the “close TUSD” camp. Some want to see TUSD improve, but recognize that it won’t happen if some parties within the Democratic Party continue silencing dissent, attempting to force the re-election of the current Board majority, resolutely refusing to admit what is plain as the broad side of a barn to anyone who pays the slightest bit of attention to what’s happening in the district’s schools: the district is being mismanaged by a Superintendent who consistently fails to implement politically or educationally progressive policies.
Asking people like Safier who present themselves as progressives to apply their general principles to particular local situations is neither abnormal nor hateful, and it is just the sort of commentary that may eventually result in constructive changes in governance and administration – absolutely what is most needed if the situation of students enrolled in TUSD schools is to improve – in the area of how testing occurs, how technology is utilized, how the USP is implemented – any area you could name, really.
So don’t expect the requests for so-called progressive positions to receive appropriate local applications to stop. They will continue until they have the effect they need to have. There are many, many indications that that will FINALLY, after three painful and damaging years of mismanagement of our schools, be in November 2016.
Ok. I can level off. After living through (occasionally awful) outcomes that really were predictable (and therefore avoidable), I like reform. Reform can be progress in a better direction – as long as it is not just dismantling and disrupting with no plan thereafter- that is not reform. I could vote for a good reformer.