Cost Comparison
Standardized tests = $2.86/student
WASL = $23/student ($27/student
when development costs are added in)
Additionally, OSPI has 16.5 full time equivalent employees at a total cost of $825,154 working on WASL-related activities.
Cost Comparison
Standardized tests = $2.86/student
WASL = $23/student ($27/student
when development costs are added in)
Additionally, OSPI has 16.5 full time equivalent employees at a total cost of $825,154 working on WASL-related activities.
Comparison of Time Required
Standardized tests require NO
preparation time other than normal studies. Time allotted to administer the tests are:
3rd grade: 2.5 hrs.
6th grade: 3.5 hrs.
9th grade: 3.25 hrs.
The
WASL is untimed, but is given over a 3-week
window of time. Recommended times
(according to OPSI) are:
4th grade: 6.33 hrs.
7th grade: 6.92 hrs.
10th grade: 7.25 hrs.
The
preparation time for the WASL is HUGE!
The
WASL is "an exam their teachers have been preparing them for since the
first day of school with tightly focused instruction and hours of practice
drills and tutoring."
"[T]he
test is now a primary driver of what is taught…" Seattle Times, April
20, 2000, p. A-1
Test or Assessment?
Test: (5) Education - Any
series of questions, exercises, or other means of measuring the skill,
knowledge, intelligence, capacities, or other aptitudes of an individual or
group.
OBJECTIVE
Assessment: (4) To set a value
on; to appraise; Synonym: estimate
SUBJECTIVE
"We
have to let students know that there are no right answers."
--William
Glasser, OBE reformer, Schools Without Failure
"…today's
students must master the new basic skills -- teamwork, critical thinking,
making decisions, communication, adaptability to change and understanding whole
systems."
--High
Skills, High Wages, Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board
(Washington state), 1994
Validity means the exam is an
accurate measure of what the student knows.
Reliability means that the grade given a particular exam would be exactly
the same, no matter who graded it or when.
"When
300 papers were graded by fifty-three graders (a total of 15,900
readings), more than one third of the papers received every possible grade. That is, 101 of the 300 papers received all nine grades: A, A-, B+, B, B-,
C+, C, C-, and D. …
94 percent [of the papers]
received either seven, eight, or nine different grades; and no essay received
less than five different grades from fifty-three readers."
100% of the 300 essays
received 5 different grades!
1961
study by Paul Diederich and his colleagues, as reported by E. D, Hirsch in The
Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them