STANDARDS-BASED ASSESSMENT BY DOUGLAS BROWN.

Assignment 7 "SUMMARY"
Halaman 104-113

STANDARDS-BASED ASSESSMENT.

In the previous chapter, you saw that a standardized test is an assessment instrument for which there are uniform procedure for administration, design, scoring, and reporting. It is also a procedure that, through repeated administrations and ongoing research, demonstrates criterion and construct validity. But a third, and perhaps the most important, element of standardized testing is the presupposition of an accepted set of standards on which to base the procedure.

Toward the end of the twentieth century, such claims began to be challenged on all fronts (see medina & neill, 1990; Kohn, 2000), and at the vanguard of those challenges were the teacher of those millions of children. Teacher saw not only possible inequity in such tests but a disparity between the content and tasks of the tests and what they were teaching in their classes.


ELD STANDARDS
The process of designing and conducting appropriate periodic reviews of ELD standards involves dozen of curriculum and assessment specialists, teachers, and researchers (Field, 2000; Kuhlman, 2001). In creating such “benchmarks for accountability” (O’Malley & Valdez pierce 1996), there is a tremendous responsibility to carry out a comprehensive study of a number of domains:
• Literally thousands of categories of language raging from phonology at one end of a continuum to discourse, pragmatics, functional and sociolinguistic elements at the other end;
• Specification of what ELD student’ needs are, at thirteen different grade levels, for succeeding in their academic and social development;
• A consideration of what is a realistic number and scope of standards to be included within a given curriculum;
• A separate set of standards (qualification, expertise, training) for teachers to teach ELD students successfully in their classroom ; and
• A through analysis of the means available to assess student attainment of those standarts.

ELD ASSESSMENT.
The development of standards obviously implies the responsibility for correctly assessing their attainment. As standards-based education became more accepted in the 1990s, many school systems across the united state found that the standardized tests of past decades were not in line with newly developed standards. Thus began the interactive process not only of developing standards but also of creating standards-based assessment. The comprehensive process of developing such assessment in California still continues as curriculum and assessment specialists design, revise, and validate numerous tests (Morgan & Kuhlman, 2001; Stack et al., 2002; see also the website http://www.cde.ca.gov/statetests/celdt/celdt.html).

CASS AND SCANS.
A similar set of standards compiled by the U. S. department of labor, now know as the secretary’s commission in achieving necessary skills (SCANS), outlines competencies necessary for language in the workplace. The competencies cover language function in terms of
• Resources (allocating, time, materials, staff, etc.),
• Interpersonal skills, teamwork, customer  service, etc.,
• Information processing, evaluating data, organizing files, etc.,
• System (e.g., understanding social and organizational systems), and
• Technology use and application
These five competencies are acquired and maintained through training in the basic skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking); thinking skills such as reasoning and creative problem solving; and personal qualities, such as self-esteem and sociability.

TEACHER STANDARDS.
In addition to the movement to create standards for learning, an equally strong movement has emerged to design standards for teaching . Cloud (2001,p 3) noted that a student’s “performance (on an assessment) depends on the quality of the instructional program provided, which depends on the quality of professional development”. Kuhlman (2001) emphasized the importance of teacher standards in three domains:
1. Linguistics and language development.
2. Culture and the interrelationship between language and culture.
3. Planning and managing instruction.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF STANDARDS-BASED AND STANDARDIZED TESTING.
The task of each test-taking “spy” was not to pass the TOEFL, but to memorize a subset of items, including the stimulus and all of the multiple-choice option, and immediately upon leaving the exam to telephone those item to the central organizers. As the memorized subsections were called in, a complete form of the TOEFL was quickly reconstructed. The organizer had employed expert consultants to generate the correct response for each item, there by re-creating the test items and their correct answer! For an outrageous price of many thousands of dollars, prearranged buyers of the results were given copies. Of the test items and correct response with a few hours to spare before entering a test administrations in the western hemisphere.

Test Bias.
It is no secret that standardized test involve a number of types of test bias. That bias comes in many forms: language, culture, race, gender, and learning styles (Medina & Nell 1990). The national center for fair and open testing, in it’s bimonthly newsletter, parents, students, and legal consultants. For example, reading selection in standardized test may use a passage form a literary piece that reflects a middle-class, white, Ango-saxon norm. lectures used for listening stimuli can easily promote a biased sociopolitical view.

Test-driven learning and teaching.
Yet another consequences of standardized testing is the danger of test-driven learning and teaching. When student and other test-takers know that one single measure of performance will determine their lives, they are less likely to take a positive attitude toward learning. The motives in such a context are almost exclusively extrinsic, with little likelihood of stirring intrinsic interests.  Test-driven learning is a worldwide issue. In japan, korea, and Taiwan, to name just a few countries, students approaching their last year of secondary school focus obsessively on passing the year-end college entrance examination, a major section of which is English (Kuba, 2002).

ETHICAL ISSUE: CRITICAL LANGUAGE TESTING.
One of the by product of a rapidly growing testing industry is the danger of an abuse of power in a special report on “fallout from the testing explosion”, Medina and Neill (1990, p. 36) noted:

Unfortunately, too many policymakers and educators have ignored the complexities of testing issue and the obvious limitations they should place on standardized test use. Instead, they have been seduced by the promise of simplicity and objectivity. The price which has been paid by our schools and our children for their infatuation with test is high.

The issues of critical language testing are numerous:
• Psychometric traditional are challenged by interpretive, individualized procedures for predicting success and evaluating ability.
• Test designer have a responsibility to often multiple mode of performance to account for varying styles and abilities among test-takers.
• Test are deeply embedded in culture and ideology.
• Test-takers are political subject in a political context.

A future problem with our test-oriented culture lies in the agendas of those who design and those who utilize the tests. Tests are used in some countries to deny citizenship (Shohamy, 1997,p. 10). Test may be nature be culture-biased and therefore may disenfranchise member of a nonmainstream value system. Test given are always in a position of power over test-takers and therefore  can impose social and political ideologies on test-takers through standards of acceptable and unacceptable items. Tests promote the notion the answers to real-word problem have unambiguous right and wrong answers with no shades of gray. A corollary to the letter is that tests presume to reflect in the standards discussed earlier in this chapter. Logic would therefore dictate that the test-maker must buy in to such a system of beliefs on order to make the cut.