'Alternate' testing for poor students baffles experts

May 19, 2004
School officials and education experts are perplexed by a county school board resolution calling for "alternate methods" of testing for students living in poverty on state exams that will be required for high school graduation.

The resolution asks the state school board and Department of Education to "[e]nsure that the [High School Assessment] program includes alternate methods of ascertaining student skills and knowledge that can be accessed by students with disabilities, English language learners, low-income students and other students with special challenges."

Special education students and students learning English have been discussed as needing special attention on high-stakes state tests in the past. But singling out low-income students has raised questions for some state board members, who were sent the resolution after the county board unanimously passed it last month.

"I would want to know what the definition is that the people who wrote that had in mind," said state board member Jo Ann T. Bell of Bowie. "Are they saying that low-income people can't learn, aren't learning, aren't at the highest point of the learning scale? Because that's not been my experience."

Joseph A. Hawkins, an education researcher at Westat and a longtime advocate for a Montgomery charter school for minority students, said he has never heard of alternate tests for poor students.

"It sounds like something they're making up on the fly here," he said.

Kati Haycock, director of the nonprofit policy group Education Trust, was similarly surprised to hear of the resolution. The Washington, D.C., trust tracks national education issues.

"I've absolutely never seen that before," she said. "One certainly needs to keep in mind that when these young people are out in the work world, no one is going to say, 'You can't read, but I'll hire you because I know you were low-income when you grew up.'"

The resolution is not asking for alternate tests for low-income students, explained county board member Patricia B. O'Neill (Dist. 3) of Bethesda, who proposed the resolution.

What the school board wants, she said, is to make sure that low-income students receive tutoring and remedial aid if they do not pass the critical tests.

On Tuesday, the state school board will hold hearings in Baltimore on how to use state assessment tests as a high school graduation requirement beginning in 2009.

The state board is scheduled to vote in mid-June on a plan that would require students to earn a minimum combined score on four state assessments at the end of four required courses: algebra I; biology; ninth-grade English; and national, state and local government. The state is also considering moving the English test to the end of 10th grade, instead of ninth.

While special education students receive Individualized Education Plans that may require alternative tests or accommodations such as more time to take tests, "There is no IEP if your child is poor," O'Neill said.

What has O'Neill and her Montgomery colleagues worried is that while a majority of state students failed the tests last year, students from poor families especially struggled.

"We're categorizing it because we know poverty is a measure that affects [test scores]," said county board member Gabriel Romero (Dist. 1) of Montgomery Village.

More than 65 percent of students statewide failed the English test in 2003 and nearly 48 percent failed the algebra test.

By contrast, 83 percent of students statewide who receive free and reduced-price meals -- an indicator of poverty that districts use -- failed the English test in 2003. Nearly 69 percent of those students also failed the algebra test.

"In terms of the way the resolution is written, they're saying, 'We've seen the impact data and we see which students right now are going to be the most at risk of not getting a diploma,'" said Theresa Alban, acting director of the county's Office of Shared Accountability.

Addressing low scores gets trickier when students fall into more than one subgroup, Romero said.

The state breaks out test results for a variety of subgroups, including special education students, students with limited English skills, FARMs students and by ethnicity and gender.

"One of the problems we have is there's a huge overlap between low income and ESOL students, for instance," Romero said.

Hawkins said he wonders why, with so many students failing the tests, the county board singled out impoverished students.

"There's a subgrouping on some other variables," he said. "Why not have accommodations for black kids who have lower passing rates? ... I don't see why someone would want to go out of their way to make accommodations for someone just because they receive FARMs."

Bell agreed.

"We have to be very careful about what we paint with a broad brush as the abilities of that child," she said.

Schools should address those problems with additional help, not different tests, said the Education Trust's Haycock.

"The needs that they have are needs in instruction, they're not needs in assessment accommodations," she said.

Hawkins agreed.

"The tests look, I almost want to say, basic," he said. "And if we're saying, 'Poor kids can't pass a basic skills test' ... then we're in pretty bad shape here."

Students will take this year's tests beginning Monday. With four years remaining for the state to implement the tests as a graduation requirement, county school officials said they hope the state board will proceed with caution. The resolution calls for the state board to delay a vote until at least December.

Hawkins doubts the tests will become a requirement for a diploma.

"I've said in the past that I don't see the Maryland assessments ever really becoming mandatory," he said. "I stick by that. So all these maneuvers to delay it and water it down ... are just politicking."