Jumping the Shark
By Goldwater Institute: Matthew Ladner (01/05/07)
The AIMS test has “fundamentally and permanently strayed from its original premise” - In an attempt to keep viewers tuning-in after many years on the air, the sitcom Happy Days produced an episode where Fonzie jumped a Great White shark on water-skis, giving rise to the phrase “Jumping the Shark.”
The AIMS test jumped the shark in 2004. The chart below shows two sets of columns from 2004 and 2005 for each grade level that took AIMS. The white columns represent the federally required minimum passing percentage, which increases every year. The black columns represent the percentage of students actually passing AIMS. Comparing each black column from 2004 to each white column from 2005 one notices that in all but 10th grade reading, the actual 2004 performance would not meet the 2005 requirement (i.e. the 2004 black column is almost always below the 2005 white column).
To address this impending problem after the 2004 AIMS test results were revealed, the state dramatically dropped the score necessary to pass AIMS. Presto-chango, Arizona Hispanic students (and others) were transformed from having been projected to fail the federal standards in almost all subjects at all grade levels in 2005 to passing almost all of them.
The time has come to focus on reliable testing measures like the Stanford-9 that depoliticizes test scores, and brings real transparency to learning.
Matthew Ladner is vice president for research at the Goldwater Institute.
Full Article: http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/aboutus/ArticleView.aspx?id=1331
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