In posts past, I have briefly discussed the way standardized tests are created. I learned much of what I know from Rog Lucido, author of EDUCATIONAL GENOCIDE.
Sometimes, people cannot understand a concept unless it is placed in a context.
Here comes the context...
As a teacher contracted by a school district, I have to sign an annual affidavit promising not to reveal ANY part of the state test.
This makes telling the public about the ridiculously crafted questions (made so in order to create the needed "curve" to place some children on top and others at the bottom) especially difficult, even with the available "released questions".
Glory glory hallelujah!
This year a perfect example fell into my lap, and I will not be penalized for telling you about it.
In order to prepare our students for the end-of-the-year standardized test, we have weeks and weeks of assessments. In order for our district to gather data on students (and teachers---remember, they need that "accountability") students take the end of the year Math test for our adopted base program three times (this is supposed to show student growth---you would think by the end of the year there would be 100%'s...in three years with this program, that has not happened once).
Data is scrutinized in staff meetings.
Standard by standard.
Problem by problem.
Our administrator noticed there was a question on which each class of 5th graders had scored ultra-poorly.
[Side note: You could spend a month on fractions (adding them, subtracting them, multiplying them, dividing them--- the various forms) and on the entire test there might be two from each operation category. That's hardly a large scope assessment of skills. And of course, they cannot be purely computational. That would be too straightforward. Even English Language Learners would do well on that, and those-in-charge do not like that. It ruins their curve. But I digress...]
We read through the question ( Yes, there is a LOT of reading on Math tests.).
There were three highly educated teachers surrounding this problem. Our brows furrowed. The incredulity of the question set in. We laughed.
Without being too detailed, since this is a district test after all, I will say that the question had to do with a geometric plane figure and basically had this wording...
...Now, you must pretend you are a 5th grader.
" Which of the following descriptions is not irrelevant to _______?"
Not irrelevant.
NOT IRrelevant.
A DOUBLE NEGATIVE!
First how many 5th graders use the word relevant?
How many of them use the word irrelevant?
And then, how many of those students would couple the word irrelevant with the word NOT to negate the prefix "ir" (which means not, incase you have not been in 5th grade for a while)?
Is it any wonder so many children got the problem wrong?
It is not because they did not know the features of that certain geometric plane figure. It is not because our 5th grade teachers had not taught the standard or were incorrectly taught.
It's because the mathematic wordplay was much too advanced.
But, did the test maker get their curve?
Yes, they did.
And to me that is not irrelevant.
