Assignment 7
Summary Standar Based Assessment

STANDARD-BASED ASSESSMENT

Standardized test is an assessment instrument for which there are uniform procedures for administration, design, scoring, and reporting it 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. A history of standardized testing in the United States reveals that during most of the decades in the middle of the twentieth century, standardized tests enjoyed a popularity and growth that was almost unchallenged.

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 teachers of those millions of children.

ELD STANDARDS

The process of designing and conducting appropriate periodic reviews of ELD standards involves dozens of curriculum and assessment specialists, teachers, and researchers (Fields, 2000; Kuhlman, 2001).

Standards-setting is a global challenge. In many non-English-speaking countries, English is now a required subject starting as early as the first grade in some countries and by the seventh grade in virtually every country worldwide. In Japan and Korea, for example, a "commnunicative" curriculum in English is required from third grade onward.

ELD ASSESSMENT

The development of standards obviously implies the responsibility for correctly assessing their attainment. As standard-based education became more accepted in the 1990s, many school systems across the United States 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 assessments.

The process of administering a comprehensive, valid, and fair assessment of ELD students continues to be perfected. Stringent budgets within departments of education worldwide predispose many in decision-making positions to rely on traditional standardized tests for ELD assessment, but rays of hope lie in the exploration of more student-centered approaches to learner assessment. Stack, Stack, and Fern (2002), for example, reported on a portfolio assessment system in the San Francisco Unified School District called the Language and Literacy Assessment Rubric (LALAR), in which multiple forms of evidence of students' work are collected. Teachers observe students year-round and record their observations on scannable forms.

CASAS AND SCANS

At the higher levels of education (colleges, community colleges, adult schools, language schools, and workplace settings), standards-based assessment systems have also had an enormous impact.The Comprehensive Adult Student Assessment System (CASAS), for example, is a program designed to provide broadly based assessments of ESL curricula across the United States. CASAS -assessment instruments- are used to measure functional reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills, and higher-order thinking skills. CASAS scaled scores report learners' language ability levels in employment and adult life skills contexts.

A similar set of standards compiled by the U. S. Department of Labor, now known as the Secretary's Commission in Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS), outlines competencies necessary for language in the workplace. The competencies cover language functions in terms of

• resources (allocating time, materials, staff, etc.),
• interpersonal skills, teamwork, customer service, etc.,
• information processing, evaluating data, organizing fues, etc.,
• systems (e.g., understanding social and organizational systems), and
• technology use and application.

TEACHER STANDARDS

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

Professional teaching standards have also been the focus of several committees in the international association of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL).

TESOL's standards committee advocates performance-based assessment of teachers for the following reasons:

• Teachers can demonstrate the standards in their teaching.
• Teaching can be assessed through what teachers do with their learners in their classrooms or virtual classrooms (their performance) .
• This performance can be detailed in what are called "indicators": examples of evidence that the teacher can meet a part of a standard.
• The processes used to assess teachers need to draw on complex evidence of penormance. In other words, indicators are more that simple "how to" statements.
• Performance-based assessment of the standards is an in"tegrated system. It is neither a checklist nor a series of discrete assessments.
• Each assessment within the system has performance criteria against which the performance can be measured.
• Performance criteria identify to what extent the teacher meets the standard.
• Student learning is at the heart of the teacher'S performance.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF STANDARDS-BASED AND STANDARDIZED TESTING 

The widespread global acceptance of standardized tests as valid procedures for assessing individuals in many walks of life brings with it a set of consequences that fall under the category of consequential validity.  Standardized tests offer high levela of practicality and reliability and are often supported by impressive construct validation studies.

• Test Bias 

It is no secret that standardized tests involve a number ot types of test bias. That bias comes in many forms: language, culture, race, gender, and learning styles (Medina & Neill, 1990). The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, in its bimonthly newsletter Fair Test, every year offers dozens of instances of claims of test bias from teachers, parents, students, and legal consultants.  For example, reading selections in standardized tests may use a passage from a literary piece that reflects a middle-class, white, Anglo-Saxon norm.

• Test-Driven Learning and Teaching 

Yet another consequence of standardized testing is the danger of test-driven learning and teaching. 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 ISSUES: CRITICAL lANGUAGE TESTING

Shohamy (1997, p. 2) further defines the issue: "Tests represent a social technology deeply embedded in education, government, and business; as such they provide the mechanism for enforcing power and control.

The issues of critical language testing are numerous:

• Psychometric traditions are challenged by interpretive, individualized procedures for predicting success and evaluating ability.
• Test designers have a responsibility to offer multiple modes of performance to account for varying styles and abilities among test-takers. 
• Tests are deeply embedded in culture and ideology.
• Test-takers are political subjects in a political context. 

References:
Brown, H. Douglas. 2004. Language Assessment: Principle and Classroom Practices. New York: Pearson Education