\doc\web\99\05\testgram.txt From: "Donna Garner" To: "ClearingHouse" Subject: [education-consumers] Ongoing Discussion of the TAAS Date sent: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 19:52:25 -0600 Send reply to: "Donna Garner" ===================================================================== "Ongoing Discussion of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills -- TAAS" by Donna Garner March 21, 1999 When the TABS/TEAMS/TAAS tests were being formulated some years ago, I was involved in submitting feedback on the grammar section (including capitalization, punctuation, and spelling). It was decided at the state level that the grammar points upon which grammar teachers could not agree would be left off the test. (These were controversial points such as the comma in a series. Some grammarians believe that it is better to put the comma after the last word in a series, e.g., red, yellow, and blue. Other grammarians believe it is better to leave out the last comma, e.g., red, yellow and blue.) Grammarians tend to fall into two groups -- traditional grammarians and modernists. My personal belief is that many of the modernists do not have a clear understanding of grammar themselves, or else they have never tried to teach their "hit and miss" grammar concepts to a classroom full of teenagers who need well-defined rules. I am afraid that many "modernists" just put punctuation where they "feel like it"; and consequently, many of our students do the same. Be that as it may, the TEA agreed early-on to test at the state level only the grammar points upon which most English teachers concurred. At our high school, all English I students are required to take released versions of the TAAS in order to get the freshmen ready for the actual Exit-Level TAAS in English II. While looking at the released versions, I was alarmed to see that a number of the questions were based upon "controversial" points of grammar. The correct answer on one of the questions had a comma before an adverbial clause at the end of a sentence. Traditional grammarians believe that there are only restrictive and nonrestrictive adjectival clauses -- not restrictive and nonrestrictive adverbial clauses. Traditionalists reason that if a student puts a comma before a "because" clause, it tends to mislead the reader into thinking that the comma is indicative of the beginning of a new independent clause; the reader ends up thinking that "because" is a coordinate instead of a subordinate conjunction and is confused when a dependent instead of an independent clause follows. Traditional grammarians believe that it is correct to set off an introductory adverbial clause with a comma (e.g., Because of cold weather, school has been canceled); but that if the adverbial clause comes at the end of the sentence, no comma is necessary (e.g., School has been canceled because of cold weather). Another point of disagreement among grammarians occurs with numbers or letters of the alphabet. Traditional grammarians believe that it is correct to write "Edna only wrote ten 100's." Notice the apostrophe before the "s." On the released TAAS tests, the test contractors have written such things as "100s" with no apostrophe. This might seem insignificant to us as adults; but to a student, it might be just enough to cause confusion. Also found on the released versions were examples where sentences were begun with coordinate conjunctions (e.g., but, and -- But it was not the right time for the lesson). Traditional grammarians teach that it is not ever correct to begin a sentence with a simple coordinate conjunction, and they also believe that the word "so" can never be a coordinate conjunction. Various other "controversial" points of grammar also exist among grammarians, e.g., whether to hyphenate a compound adjective which occurs before a noun (short-term memory); whether "to" should be capitalized when it is part of an infinitive and not a preposition (To Dream or Not To Dream); whether the words "President" and "Governor" should always be capitalized; whether there should be quotation marks around words used as words (e.g., The girl answered "yes" to the question); whether the singular possessive of a noun is always formed by adding an apostrophe and an "s" (glass's surface); whether a compound sentence should have a semicolon between two independent clauses when one or both clauses has internal punctuation (They all ran; and several of them jumped the tracks, circled the train, and hung onto the railing); and whether a plural pronoun can be used to refer back to a singular indefinite pronoun, e.g., Everyone knows (they, he) should go home. The good news is that English grammar has many points upon which nearly everyone can agree, and these are the points that should be covered on the TAAS test. Since so much is riding on the TAAS scores, there is no need for the Texas Education Agency to test the "controversial" points of grammar. Because there are only a very few questions on the TAAS which cover English usage, if a student misses two or three questions, he could fail that entire section. Of course, we all know that the TEA puts almost no emphasis on the multiple-choice grammar section. To quote from one of my recent articles, "To pass the writing section, a student who made a 4 on the essay only had to answer 8 out of 40 multiple-choice questions correctly. That means he could get 32 wrong and still pass the writing section." If by some miracle, the TEA should decide to raise the passing standard on the multiple-choice section and if the new TAAS (being rewritten as we speak) should remain knowledge-based (right or wrong answers) instead of moving into a performance-based assessment (subjectively scored), then it will be continue to be very important that all English teachers in Texas instruct their students on the same points of grammar. The TEA needs to make sure that the subcontractors who produce the TAAS stay away from questionable points of grammar and test only those points upon which there is general agreement. Students and teachers alike all need to be informed as to the exact points of grammar which will be tested and the exact grammar rules that will be followed. Because of the broad and generic wording in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) content standards document, nobody knows for sure what will be on the newly developed TAAS tests. Texas teachers will find it very difficult to train their students to hit a moving target. I am also troubled by the TAAS security measures which prohibit teachers who proctor the TAAS from viewing the contents of the test booklets even after the students are finished with the exams. I understand why such security measures are in place while the students are still testing; but it seems to me that teachers should be allowed to see the actual questions before the test booklets are sent back to the TEA so that formal protests can be filed if controversial questions are found on the tests. What would happen if the TAAS had some "controversial" grammar questions or some actual mistakes on it; and no one were allowed to see the TAAS tests until the released versions were posted well after the promotion/retention decisions were made? Can we totally trust the subcontractors who write the TAAS questions? How do we know that they themselves have a solid grammar background and are not just products of the same education system which has turned out a generation of poor writers and speakers who make up the rules as they go? The TAAS also has many forms, e.g., Form A, Form B, Form C, etc. How will the public know whether every form has been released for them to view? How will the public know for sure how many forms of the TAAS there are? How will a parent know whether the test which his child took in the spring is the same exact test that is open for public viewing in the summer? What is to prohibit the TEA from releasing just the forms of the tests which contain the fewest controversial items? Because the TAAS has been elevated to such a high level for students, administrators, and teachers, I believe that we must dialogue about some of the problems we see with the present TAAS and with the "sons of TAAS" which will surface in the future. Donna Garner dggarner@swbell.net ===================================================================== EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE networking and information for parents and taxpayers on the internet Subscriptions & Archives: http://education-consumers.com or You are currently subscribed to education-consumers as: arthurhu@halcyon.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send a blank email to leave-education-consumers-989462S@lists.dundee.net ===================================================================== For less mail, click on the following link and choose 1) a daily digest, 2) a daily list of subjects, or 3) no mail (read postings on Web) http://lists.dundee.net/scripts/lyris.pl?enter=education-consumers For more help & info: http://www.lyris.com/help or