Education officials bank on new test to meet federal standards

State signs five-year contract with company based in New Hampshire

To test or not to test is no longer the question.

By JANE RIDER of the Missoulian

Instead, "What kind of test?" is the query states are faced with since passage of a new federal law,
the No Child Left Behind Act.

Montana education officials believe they’ve found their answer in a New Hampshire-based test
development company called Measured Progress. The firm entered the testing business about 19
years ago and has carried contracts for large-scale testing programs in 28 states.

"Our specialty over the years has been customized statewide assessments," said Stuart Kahl,
Measured Progress president.

Since those early years, the stakes of testing programs have increased considerably, he said.

Under the new federal law, public schools now must test annually in reading and math in grades 3
through 8 and at one high school level. They also must test grades 4, 8 and 11 in science.

School assessment scores must show annual yearly progress. Their failure to do so means state
officials could be forced to restaff a school or rebuild curricula.

A high-quality testing tool becomes critical to helping teachers assess their effectiveness in the
classroom and determine what they must do to improve student learning.

Measured Progress’ track record has impressed state education officials.

"They have an excellent record in developing customized state assessments," said B.J. Granberry,
Montana’s Title I director.

The Office of Public Instruction recently signed a five-year contract with the company at a cost of
$2.5 million annually. The federal government is distributing $3 million annually to states to develop
and administer an assessment that specifically tests state curriculum standards and fully complies
with new federal legislation.

Funding should extend over at least five years, but each year Congress has to appropriate the
money.

"It will take that long to develop it," Granberry said.

Measured Progress officials begin work in Montana next month, when teachers will review and
critique reading passages for test questions and provide feedback. Are the passages rich enough?
Fair? Accessible? Understandable? Culturally correct?

In September, teachers from seven grades from across the state will team with company officials to
develop test questions that align with state curriculum standards.

In October, Measured Progress officials will work with teachers on professional development. They’ll
talk about assessment strategies and how to use test results to improve learning in their classrooms.
They’ll also give more feedback on more test questions.

"This way there is tremendous buy-in and tremendous professional development," said Stuart Kahl,
Measured Progress president.

The company has a core set of questions modeled after the National Assessment of Educational
Progress, also known as "the nation’s report card," that will become part of Montana’s test. Staff will
modify that basic test and add another set of 10 to 15 questions per grade level – questions
specifically designed to test state curriculum standards.

Next April, OPI and Measured Progress officials expect to pilot a sample test at yet-to-be-determined
schools across the state.

"All districts will be contacted and it will be on a volunteer basis," said Judy Snow, OPI state
assessment director. "Then we’ll revisit it to see how well students understood the items."

After Measured Progress is fully integrated into all public schools, test questions and results will be
released at the end of each year to allow educators to focus instruction in needed areas.

For example, several students incorrectly give the answer for the equation "1/2 + 1/4 = ?" as the
fraction two-sixths. If a teacher is able to see the specific math problem, she or he could quickly
identify where confusion exists and how to help the students.

"There is a wealth of information that goes back into the classroom this way," Kahl said. "Because of
the high stakes associated with this testing, we believe strongly those items ought to be released
every year."

It also means Measured Progress must come out with new sets of test questions every year. Work
sessions with state educators this fall are expected to generate multiple sets of questions, enough to
extend over several years, Kahl said.

Currently, Montana public schools annually test about 36,000 students in grades 4, 8 and 11 using
the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Iowa Test of Education Development. They are off-the-shelf
national exams that compare Montana students to the nation’s.

They cost $6 a student to administer and score.

The state assessment developed by Measured Progress will test about 83,090 students at a cost of
about $30 per student.

Testing costs vary greatly across the nation as do the sophistication of the assessments.
Washington spends about $35 per student and Wyoming spends about $70 per student, while
Vermont – which also uses individual student portfolios – spends about $175 per student.

Although tests like the Iowa Test of Basic Skills are less expensive and give state educators an idea
how Montana stacks up against other students elsewhere in the country, their downside is they
aren’t designed specifically to test the state’s curriculum.

"Because they aren’t matched to the standards, it is very difficult to improve your program and
instruction," Kahl said.

And as the official state assessment, they didn’t comply with less rigorous federal laws and are even
further afield of the new legislation.

Montana’s noncompliance, which until recently state education officials say resulted from not having
enough state funding to develop or buy a better test, has gotten the state into hot water more than
once.

Earlier this year, Montana was just three days away from potentially losing about $34 million in
federal dollars for low-income students struggling in reading and math. About two-thirds of Montana
schools qualify for the Title I program that provides money for extra instruction.

"We were very at risk," Granberry said.

If the state hadn’t reached a compliance agreement within 90 days of the date the No Child Left
Behind Act took effect, the U.S. Department of Education vowed to stop Title I Part A payments.

Montana and federal officials signed a compliance agreement just before that deadline which gave the
state three more years to develop a new state assessment. Meantime, the state will continue to use
the Iowa tests. Because the Legislature didn’t appropriate any money to cover the cost of the
2002-03 testing cycle, school districts will have to pay $6 per student out of their local budgets to
cover the March 2003 bill, Granberry said.

By 2005-06, the state must have Measured Progress reading and math tests in place and students
will start taking the exams in April 2006, Granberry said. The new science assessment follows in
2007-08.

The fate of the Iowa tests remains unclear, Snow said.

"It’s the piece that allows us to compare our students to students elsewhere," said Snow, the Office
of Public Instruction assessment director. "Our students do very well as a whole. The norm-reference
test was never intended to do everything. It measures basic knowledge."

It’s important to have an array of instruments to assess student progress. The new test will add to the
picture, Snow said.

"Each piece helps us know more about a student and what they need," she said.

State officials expect the Measured Progress assessment will address concerns that The Princeton
Review recently raised about Montana’s accountability system.

The for-profit test preparation company and admissions service that prepares students for tests like
the SAT, LSAT and MCAT ranked state testing systems across the nation this past year.

Montana ranked 48th out of 51 and scored 62.5 points out of a possible 200 when evaluated in four
broad categories.

"Parents should be concerned about the ways their states measure learning and teaching because
those measurement systems will profoundly impact their children’s schools," the report stated.

"It is our hope that many of these programs will have improved when we survey them again next year,
both as a result of heightened public scrutiny and through compliance with the No Child Left Behind
Act," it said.

Snow said she believes Montana’s new state assessment will rectify problems cited in the report.

"That is supported by a memo we received from The Princeton Review people that told us not to be
thrown by Montana’s score," she said. The memo stated, "We know you are revising your system
and the new system will significantly raise many of these scores."

At the time the report was released, Superintendent of Public Instruction Linda McCulloch said the
state has been hampered by a lack of money to develop a new test. She also noted that the report
fails to take into account the high achievement levels of Montana students.

So here’s one final question. Will the new test ultimately improve instruction and learning?

The answer to that question remains to be seen, said Bob McKean, curriculum director at Missoula
County Public Schools.

But he is "cautiously optimistic."

"We haven’t seen the test in action, but the items I saw were of high quality," he said.

He likes the idea that the test isn’t all multiple choice; students will answer open-ended questions at
the end of each section.

He also likes that the test core is modeled after the National Assessment of Educational Progress,
that Montana professionals will help develop the state-aligned questions and that the contract
includes professional training for teachers.

"They are really trying to make it a nice fit to our state standards, and I’m glad to see they
recognized how important it is for teachers to be able to use the data at the classroom level,"
McKean said.

Still, McKean is reluctant to replace the Missoula Achievement Level Tests with the Measured
Progress product because MALT was specifically designed to make year-to-year comparisons in
reading, math and language and is closely aligned with Missoula’s curriculum.

"But its future is uncertain after next year," McKean said. "Our concern is we don’t want to overtest
the kids. It’s sad to say that we may have so many tests that we might have to eliminate it."

So McKean awaits next spring.

"I want to see what happens after they pilot it," he said. "Then I’ll have much more understanding
rather than just cautious optimism."

Reporter Jane Rider can be reached at 523-5298 or at [email protected].

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