True Or False: Parents Believe Test Scores Idaho Schools Offer More-Frequent Testing, But Still Face Skeptics

Parents in Idaho may want more standardized tests, but they’re still skeptical when the results come out.

In response to what the state Superintendent of Public Instruction calls a mandate from the voters, the state now requires that nearly all grade levels take standardized achievement tests.

But because of the high cost of the full-length Iowa Test of Basic Skills, schools use a shorter version of the test - the survey form - in most grades.

Instead of spending more than five hours filling in tiny ovals with their No. 2 pencils, students in grades four, six, eight, 10 and 11 now only spend 90 minutes.

So when the Coeur d’Alene School District announced dramatic improvements in its test scores on Monday, district watchdog Eileen Cox pulled out her magnifying glass.

First, Cox questioned whether the test even gauges basic skills at all.

“This appears to have moved away from basic skills,” she said, noting the emphasis on analysis and the absence of break-outs for skills such as spelling and math.

She also found that the district was comparing the short forms to longer forms from past years.

“This is misleading and unprofessional to provide this to the press, the board and the community,” she said.

When she presented her findings to the board, she found at least one believer.

“The tests keep getting easier and easier and shorter and shorter and less and less of a quantitative measure of what our children are learning,” said Ken Burchell, Coeur d’Alene school board chairman.

“Something’s wrong here,” he said.

But the publisher of the tests and educators say that even the short form of the ITBS is still one of the best standardized indicators of how well kids are learning.

“We created the survey battery test only with the understanding that the reliability would be equally as high as the regular test,” said Paul Scott of Riverside Publishing, which produces the ITBS in conjunction with the University of Iowa.

Riverside compared test scores of the same group of students who took both the survey test and the full battery test. The company found “minimal difference” in the performance, Scott said.

“We wanted to be able to say to school districts that you can use the survey and the complete test interchangeably,” he said.

That does not mean that professional educators uniformly agree on which is a better measure of academic mastery.

“That’s where the jury’s still out,” said Becky Ford, curriculum director for the Post Falls School District.

“Some supporters of the survey (test) say the very brevity of it provides the impetus for the student to stay on task,” she said. “Another person might argue that there are so few items, how can you authenticate whether the student has mastery or not?”

Test scores are always open to interpretation, but school officials nonetheless attempt to spot trends and weaknesses.

And despite Cox’s criticism, Coeur d’Alene’s curriculum director insists that the overall trend is improvement.

“I feel cautiously optimistic,” she said. Because of poor test scores in math and spelling two years ago, the district has emphasized those basic skills.

Those are still weak areas, she said, but “we’re seeing some gains.”

Bauman said she did err by comparing two different types of scores, but even with the correct comparison, scores are improving.

Bauman called “doing well” scoring above the 60th percentile - which means Coeur d’Alene schools are doing better than 60 percent of the schools in the nation.

That isn’t good enough, Cox contends.

“The administration has set their goals at the median levels and that is not doing well,” Cox said.

, DataTimes