Ensure Accuracy Case Study

To many students standardized testing has become another part of schooling that is dreaded. Standardized testing has been a part of school since the nineteen-thirties; in those days it was used as a way to measure students that had special needs. Since the time that standardized test have been in American schools there has been many programs that have placed an importance on the idea of standardized testing such as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Evans 1). Over the years the importance of standardized testing has increased tremendously and so has the stakes, not only for teachers but also students. All states in the United States of America have state test in order to measure how much students learn, and help tell how well the

Channelview ISD, the district in which I was raised and currently teach, is considered a low demographic district with a high population of at-risk, economically disadvantaged and special education students. The TAPR results exhibit a clear correlation between the demographics of the school and their performance results. Results vary sporadically and show clear indicators of differences amongst demographic factors such as grade, gender, race, economic level, language capabilities and intelligence level, however, some factors influence test results more than others. Grade, intelligence level and language capabilities prove to be the main factors in the gaps between the percent of the state that were at Level II Satisfactory or Above and district percentage results. Also analyzed were the percentages of students who were at Postsecondary Readiness and Advanced and lastly and analysis on what percent of students made progress and exceeded progress as well as identifying which students performed well and

High Stakes Testing has been overly integrated in the education systems. High-stakes testing are used to determine grade retention, school curriculum, and whether or not students will receive a high school diploma (Myers, 2015). Since the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, high stakes testing has become the norm and mandating that students must pass a standardized test before moving up in grade. As a special education director, the focus is to ensure the student’s accommodations are being followed. Accommodations help increase students’ academic performance. “Both the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004 and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) call for students with disabilities to participate in the general education curriculum and in testing programs to the maximum extent possible for each student (Luke and Schwartz, 2010).” Throughout the years, high stakes testing is becoming more common than ever before. The reality is high stakes testing is one indicator in evaluating children with specific needs. This paper will discuss, the violation of the statutory language regarding assessment based on IDEA, the strategies and goals of a remediation, staff training, common Core and PARCC assessment, and funding for the remediation plan under IDEA.

These tests will provide teachers and administrators a diagnosis of how the school is performing and in which areas the school needs to improve on. This will also inform policymakers which schools are doing well and why. Then that technique can be applied to schools in which the scores were not meeting standards. President Bush and the U.S. Congress have challenged educators to set high standards and hold students, schools and districts accountable for results. (Dept. of Ed, 2004)

To achieve a good volumetric technique, the experimenter needs to be able to correctly complete certain procedures.

The 1980s brought a new reform movement in education, accompanied by a new emphasis on testing. The effort to improve education at all levels included the use of standardized tests to provide accountability for what students are learning. Minimum competency tests, achievement tests, and screening instruments were used to ensure that students from preschool through college reached the desired educational goals and achieved the minimum standards of education that were established locally or by the state education agency. As we continue in a new century, these concerns have increased.

Standardized tests, in all forms, provided information for the students, teachers, and parents (Christison & Schneider, 2013). For students and parents alike, standardized test was a useful way for students to measure their own progress and parents to monitor their child’s progress academically (Blazer, 2012). Unlike regular classroom grades or comprehension exit exams, standardized testing was also a great predictor of how a student would later perform in college and/or their level of work readiness (Blazer, 2012). Teachers used the data provided by such tests to monitor what their student were and were not learning and the material that they had already mastered (Carroll, 2015). Teachers often used standardized testing data as an instructional tool to determine whether or not their lessons were effective for their student’s (Carroll, 2015). Standardized testing was a reliable method to provide standard information on student skills and changes that needed to be made in order for students to meet their goals for learning (Carroll, 2015). Standardized testing was found to be the only objective, consistent, and comparable method to measure the student’s success (Morial,

Tests have become the most important indication of a teacher’s success and school’s performance. As a result, teachers may feel the need to ensure that the scores stay high and continue to rise. Teachers tend to cover only what is expected to be on the

Today, schools are engrossed on educational reform as a top priority for educational success. This focus can be contributed to The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which develops responsiveness of the poor performance of schools. Especially those schools that are deemed to be in lower-income neighborhoods that are known to be disadvantaged (Gresham, 2005). With NCLB, federal laws now demand schools to collect information on students’ performance to help recognize the true extent of the problem with struggling learners.

Fact Sheet: Testing Action Plan. Federal Information & News Dispatch. ProQuest Research Library, search.proquest.com/docview/1726842708?accountid=6222. Accessed 27 Oct. 2016. This article provides knowledge on how standardized tests are shaped and organized, and how they affect students, especially minorities. This article explains that standardized tests can have positive effects if they are organized the correct way and taught the information in class because “students do best on high-quality assessments that actually measure critical thinking and complex skills when they have been exposed to strong instruction”. This article also emphasizes the fact that standardized tests can be very time consuming, and that they are unfair

A school district’s ability to prepare students to be college and career ready is evaluated based upon standardized testing (William, 2010). Even as standardized testing has been the focus of a great deal of discussion and controversy in recent years regarding the validity of using standardized test scores to determine student proficiency, such tests have become more important as mandates such as No Child Left Behind required the use of standardized tests to determine if school districts are adequately educating their students (Kim & Sunderman, 2005). Researchers have noted that the reliance on standardized testing as a measure of how well school districts and their teachers are educating students has resulted in administrators and teachers changing their practices in order to achieve higher test scores (Supovitz, 2009). School administrators and teachers have placed much more focus on the actions that they can take in order to increase standardized test scores (Sink, 2003).

The educational system in the United States has gone through many changes over the last century. These changes are a part of a constant movement toward educational excellence for every child in this nation. One of the most recent acts placed on public school systems by the government is to create more accountability for schools in order to ensure that all children are receiving the proper education. Part of this mandate is that public schools will require students to take tests in order to gather information about their academic achievement. Although educators and administrators claim that the mandatory ability testing programs being initiated in America’s public schools will hold students and teachers accountable for academic

Assessment has drawn much attention, especially since the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESES). It is not that assessment is new to education but that the stakes of assessment has risen to a new level. It is apparent that testing is now viewed in a much different way by the public, schools and all stakeholders of schools than in the past. Over time, testing has developed roles of providing a grade to mark student progress, diagnose students’ strengths and weaknesses so that instruction can be planned for student improvement and indicate teacher effectiveness (Popham, 2014). In recent years, it has become common practice for the general public to use testing to form judgement of the effectiveness of schools. Tests are now included in teacher performance evaluations, and used to improve the teaching process.

In order to evaluate the State’s Learning Standards at the student, school, district, and State levels and to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), standardized tests are given each year. The tests are necessary to monitor student progress and ensure students are prepared for the next year of study (NYSED, 2006). Tests administered to math students in grades 3-8 will help identify struggling students who may need additional assistance. It is recommended that schools base decisions regarding success or retention of a student on multiple assessments and not solely the achievement of a New York State Test (NYSED, 2006).

As a counselor in my building, I will be in charge of standardized testing. To help prepare for this, I am attending a testing coordinators meeting this November. Since I am still a classroom teacher this is a magnificent opportunity. I will have to become familiar with procedures and protocol, for the state and nationally mandated test. Not only how to administer, but also how to interpret the outcome data. This data will indicate what student needs remediation, and the type of help they need. I will also be responsible for understanding the ASCA student competencies, mindsets, and behaviors. This will enable me to determine strategies for us to help my student achieve academic, career, and social and emotional proficiency.