Solange Castro Belcher: What do SAT 9 scores tell us and what do they not tell us?
Sonia Hernández: The SAT 9 was only designed to measure student achievement within a 9-month period. It’s even less precise than that because it is meant to measure a wide range of grade levels. It gives you a very rough view of what groups of students have learned within the things that Harcourt School Publishers deem that they should know at each level. There are some things it measures and some things that it doesn’t. It is not based on the California curriculum standards, but on what Harcourt thinks. So the data is gross and imprecise by design. The worst thing you can do with that data, in any reasonable fashion, is to use it at the school level. When the state board adopted the SAT 9, Harcourt told them you can’t use this to make high stakes decisions. The publishers told the state the limitations of the test and the state chose to act regardless of the information given. It has a 40% to 80 % chance of being wrong because the margin is so great for the individual.
SCB: Is there a positive role that norm referenced tests can play?
SH: It is a useful tool for a school district that wants a very broad sense of how their students are doing. Are our students learning to read? The SAT 9 can be helpful because it gives you data that can be compared. But it’s a very rough-cut. If all states had adopted the same curriculum standards, then it would be a piece of cake. But we’re 50 individual states, we all have different content standards, so there is no one test that does that well. Of all the tests, the NAEP (National Assessment of Education Progress), The Nations Report card, probably does that the best. To the extent that you want to make comparisons, norm referenced tests can do that. But high stakes decision making should be based on criterion referenced tests, tests that measure how well a person has learned a specific body of knowledge and skills. But no student should ever be measured by a single test score.
SCB: What sort of information do you think parents need to know about student learning and the role tests and other assessments play in providing this information?
SH: The Alliance did a survey of parents in Los Angeles last year. Basically, parents say they rely on report cards. They really did not know how their child did on any tests. And in the public schools, the kids are given so many tests, that the parents are truly confused. They thought the SAT 9 was the same thing as the SAT, and you can’t blame them. It hasn’t proven to be very informative, any of the tests. Even when the state requires that the test results are mailed to the parents. They don’t understand what they’re getting. So parents need a very simplified reporting of preferably a couple of tests with a lot of explanation of what they mean and what they don’t mean.
SCB: Can you tell us a little bit about the Alliance? How did it come to be? What do you hope to accomplish? How can people learn more?
SH: We are a legacy organization of Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now (LEARN) and Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project (LAAMP), the two other reform organizations that focus on LA County. But we do primarily advocacy research and community organizing to try to improve conditions for learning for all kids. The hopefulness is with the Master Plan, the proposed plan for K –12 education. The Master Plan states that we should stop using norm referenced tests.
