Standardized Testing 3
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       Standardized testing is used to evaluate student achievement in order to allocate funding and raise educational standards, but many states have adopted alternative assessments as an additional form of testing. As mentioned earlier in paper 2, proponents feel that alternative assessments offer a better representation of student achievement and will properly control funding and therefore equalize student performance.
       
       Performance or alternative assessments were only introduced about five years ago, which causes difficulty when measuring their effectiveness and success. The implementation of alternative assessments is overseen by the states' boards of education, the central office staffs and superintendents of each school system (NC Public Schools). The structure of the testing program is done across the state by the boards of education and the superintendents supervise the efforts of teachers and schools to properly administer the tests.
       
       Kentucky and South Carolina are currently participating in performance assessments. New studies of classroom instruction in Kentucky indicate that teachers are devoting more time training students to solve complex problems and to think critically than they were before a performance assessment program was implemented. The Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University conducted a recent evaluation of Kentucky's assessment program and found that students are writing more and doing more group work as a result of the new state testing program.
      
        Almost all superintendents, district assessment coordinators, and teachers said that writing had improved among the students in Kentucky (Improving America's Schools). A success of alternative assessments in Kentucky and other states as well, has been its ability to measure the achievement of students with disabilities, who may not be able show their skills on paper and pencil standardized tests (Improving America's Schools).
       
        The concern of task limitation is also a problem with alternative assessments. Proponents of alternative assessments say that standardized testing is a very narrow and shallow representation of a student's knowledge. Educational researchers have found that written forms of exams can only target a few areas whereas standardized multiple-choice tests cover a broad range of topics, "providing a more detailed picture of student learning than is implied by the previous statement" (Educational Policy Analysis Archive). Furthermore, "performance assessments may show how students solve problems or how much they have practiced the skill being assessed. Essays may indicate the ability to organize thoughts and communicate them in writing or nothing more than the acquisition of a formula for writing essays, assiduously taught in preparation for the assessment. Discerning the difference is another hurdle alternative assessment must surmount" (Educational Policy Analysis Archive).
       
        Time is also another factor because performance assessments, such as a writing portfolio, are very complex tasks and take longer, causing further limitation. "Achieving a "substantial number of tasks" in alternative assessment is often impossible, making a generalization from the performance tasks to the larger realm of the subject area being assessed problematic (Educational Policy Analysis Archive).
       
        Proponents praise alternative assessments for its ability to make students think critically and actively, but this can create other problems because it often requires that the tests be very particular. If the prompt or context of the tests change, "one of the unnerving findings is: the student's scores changes," (Educational Policy Analysis Archive). For the purpose of comparison and generalization for funding and governmental assistance, standardization is essential. Information shows that alternative assessment "has yet to demonstrate the ability to provide generalizable information for comparison purposes over time on a large-scale basis without proving more costly in time and resources than standardized testing and without itself falling prey to the 'teaching to the test' syndrome" (Education Policy Analysis Archives).
       
        This problem may be easily solved, for researchers believe that teaching to the test can be avoided by administering, "fresh, non-redundant, equivalent tests, regardless of the format" (Education Policy Analysis Archives). Tennessee is one of the states that now have mandatory test revisions (Education Policy Analysis Archives).
       
        The implementation of alternative assessments has proven the opponents' concerns of costs, stated previously, to be legit. Performance-based alternative assessments are generally more expensive than traditional standardized tests due to the extra time and training required for scorers to read and score the tests. "Because they are expensive and difficult to develop, administer and score, their usefulness for large-scale assessment is questionable" (Education Policy Analysis Archive). "In these days of shrinking budgets, the cost-effectiveness of nationally standardized tests is a major boon to most local school districts. They can, in effect, get accountability for pennies a pupil," (American Association of School Administrators (AASA) Critical Issues Report, Education Policy Analysis Archive). There are estimates that using performance assessments in most subjects in American schools will cost $2.5 to $3 billion a year, and although there are several advantages of performance assessments, its financial and personnel costs jeopardize its continuance (Education Policy Analysis Archive).
       
        Constructing a reliable, valid, large-scale assessment program that can be used as a means of school accountability and funding while improving the curriculum is an extremely complicated and difficult goal. Early research shows that it will be a challenge for states to ensure the reliability of their testing if there is an absence of rules and preparation and the tasks are not standardized, but conversely, data shows that the curriculum and student achievement levels are improving with more flexible, hands-on learning of alternative assessments. Some educational researchers believe that alternative assessment can be made to work if the system meets the "Criteria for Evaluation of Student Assessment Systems, which has been endorsed by more than 100 national civil rights, education and advocacy organizations" (Student Assessment and Testing).
      
        This criterion was formed by FairTest, which co-chairs the National Forum on Assessment with the Council for Basic Education (Student Assessment and Testing). The Criteria... states that "assessment results should be reported in the context of other relevant information," (Education Policy Analysis Archive). This criterion is crucial for successful testing, for "multiple indicators permit educators and policymakers to examine the relationship among context factors (such as type of community, socioeconomic status of students), resources (such as expenditures per students, staffing, and money for materials and equipment), programs and processes (such as curriculum, instructional methods, class size, and grouping), and outcomes (such as student performance, dropout rates, employment, and further education)" (Student Assessment and Testing).
      
        This criterion mirrors the concerns addressed in the earlier stated solutions that were adopted in North Carolina's "First in America" program, established by Governor Jim Hunt and Texas's Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS). Some of the other criteria is as followed:
•Educational standards specifying what students should know and be able to do should be clearly defined before assessment procedures and exercises are developed.
•The primary purpose of the assessment systems should be to assist both educators and policy makers to improve education and advance student learning.
•The assessment exercises or tasks should be valid and appropriate representations of the standards students are expected to achieve.
•Teachers should be involved in designing and using the assessment system.
•The assessment system should be subject to continuous review and improvement (Student Assessment and Testing).

       The solution to fair, reliable testing that can be used to hold schools accountable might be solvable; it may be a matter of balance. Research shows that "assessment strategies are far more effective than standardized testing at measuring the kind of learning called for in the standards...they promote high quality classroom instruction...and help teachers gain rich insights into their students' thinking," (TERC). Due to their limitations, such as time, cost, and reliability, school accountability for funding and a successful assessment system are only obtainable if assessments are used in correlation with another form of standardized measurement. It is suggested that "more than one task be used to assess the same skill and that performance assessments be handled with care_as one more piece of the puzzle, not as the sole measure of success or failure"(TERC).
       
        Equal testing for all students, nationwide, is impossible. Firstly, as long as the federal government gives the states flexibility to alter testing according to their needs, there is not adequate standardization. Secondly, the problems and solutions run in a circular motion. The only way to reach testing equality nationwide is if the federal government took total control over the form of testing, the funding, and the curriculum in the states' educational systems. This would not allow flexibility for local adjustment, thus making testing unfair and unequal. "There is no guarantee that this issue will be solved simply by changing test types. Whatever the format of the test, if scores continue to be used to classify and track children, the underlying issues remain unresolved" ("Alternative Assessment: Implications for Social Studies").
      
       There is no one way to get an exact evaluation of a student's knowledge or achievement level, but a combination of testing may be the only solution.
When testing is used to track and evaluate students, and to examine and account schools, a solution does not seem possible.