Ethics In Testing And Assessment: American Public University System

It is abundantly clear, after reading this article, that minorities students are overrepresented in special education classrooms. One point that really stuck out for me from this article was how students are placed in special programs and provided with special services because of their results on early elementary testing. “Diverse learners are more likely to be referred for additional testing and placement in special education programs because achievement tests typically do not assess literacy skills that they may have acquired outside school, and these skills often differ from the ones these children are expected to have when they enter school” (pg. 2). As educators

Standardized tests can also be biased or unfair because questions on these tests necessitate understanding and abilities that typically children from advantaged families have (Kohn, A, 2000). Children who live in poorer communities have a

This paper focuses on the overrepresentation or over-identification of minority students found in special education in our schools. I chose to research this topic because being an immigrant myself, I can relate to the education experience of a student who is new to the American school system.

In conclusion as I mentioned before counselors must remain confidential in all aspects of their job including testing and assessment. The ASCA and ACA provide codes of ethics to follow. Counselors should follow these code of ethics to prevent misuse of test, releasing client information and many more. Now that we live in an era where technology is advanced school counselors must be mindful to ensure that their clients information will remain confidential. There are numerous of assessments that require proper training before administering. Counselors must be competent in an assessment before they can administer it. It is up to counselor to determine of they are competent enough to administer a test but there are sources that can help a counselor

For this assignment I reached out to an instructor at Lakeland College who is also a professional school counselor named Wendy Falk. Wendy was happy to complete an interview with me and provided information about herself including what assessments she uses, her theoretical orientation, and why these assessments are used. Wendy also spoke about her school counseling position, a difficult case she was presented with, and her opinion on the use of assessments. Additional research was conducted to learn more about the assessments she discussed.

The importance of this standard is to acquire feedback from fellow constituents in order to evaluate the school counselor’s performance. This is beneficial to counselors in terms of promoting personal growth and overall success. Evaluations are also a collaborative effort pertaining to the administrator and interim site school counselor. Evaluations provide insight and the ability to analyze each counselor’s results for clarification and the capability to assess each counselor’s skills.

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.

Over the past decade, several researchers have released evidence proving a bias in standardized testing towards minority students. In this paper I will argue in favor of those supporting the idea of a bias in standardized testing. A bias in standardized testing would not only effect the students it is biased against, but the public and other students as well. This is why it is important that we take the time to educate ourselves with the evidence provided. In order to make a decision as to whether or not standardized testing is indeed biased, we must educate ourselves on the amount of test preparation the test requires, as well as how it is created.

Disproportionate identification of minority students in special education is a major concern in schools today. This paper describes the issues in the assessment process with minority students and how we have arrived at a situation where minorities are being misdiagnosed into special education programs. Additionally, several legal cases are mentioned which show numerous actions and rulings that have tried to correct the disproportionate identification in special education. Some of the legal cases discussed include Larry P. v Riles, Diana v. State Board of Education, and Guadalupe v. Tempe Elementary School, which all significantly impacted special education today. Additionally, the Individual with Disabilities Education Act has enforced

The school counselor uses the test scores to determine whether or not the comprehensive school counseling program made an impact on the students. The school counselor also use the scores to help better the counseling program at the school and to determine which areas need more work. The school counselor also share the results with the stakeholders. Looking at the example given the results from the pre test and the post test the lesson on bullying awareness worked. The purpose of testing is to see improvements. In the pre test, the scores were lower than the post test which is a good. The lesson on bullying seemed to change the students mind because the scores were higher on the post test. The percent of change for the last question was 60%.

Yet, it is important to distinguish between negative academic outcomes due to environmental factors and actual learning or intellectual disabilities. Moreover, these factors do not justify the disproportionality, thus, many leaders suggest that the source of this misrepresentation is within the school system itself, not the students. In the specific case of learning disabilities, some experts question the validity of this condition and suggest that the real problem is that some schoolchildren are not receiving adequate academic experiences (Fletcher and Navarrete, 2003). Furthermore, test bias, conscious or unconscious bias, cultural mismatch, and racism remain regrettable but likely factors for misdiagnosis due to the lack of diversity in the teaching force and the lack of cultural responsive training (Skiba, 2013).

“Our educational goal [is] the production of caring, competent, loving, lovable people” . The students found in the schools across the United State are the future of America. They are the doctors, teachers, business people, lawyers and many other roles, that will be out in the workforce in the years to come. What they learn in school will impact them immensely; it is the responsibility of a teacher to give students the best education in order to ensure the common good of the future. It is essential for students to not only learn content matter, but also the skills to enable them to participate in a democracy. Due to standardized testing, the emphasis of education has become on score and rankings rather than learning. A standardized test does not look at the whole student, the scores provided are on a very narrow aspect of education. In the classroom, there are countless ways for teachers to assess the student as a whole person not as just a score. Standardized tests scores should not be the sole criteria for determining a student’s academic achievement.

School counselors use data to, “identify school counseling program goals; monitor student progress to close the achievement gap; assess and evaluate programs; demonstrate school counseling program effectiveness (Young, 2013).” The purpose of assessments are to identify and plan school counseling programs that align with the mission of schools. School counselors assist students individually to help with academic, personal/social or career concerns. One helps student establish goals as well as develop plans. School counselors conduct informal assessments by interviewing students to obtain information about their current problem or situation.

The tests require children to draw from knowledge they learn or experiences they’ve had outside of school, which is different for each student. According to W. James Popham, an expert on educational assessment, “If children come from advantaged families and stimulus-rich environments, then they are more apt to succeed on items in standardized achievement test items than will other children whose environments don't mesh as well with what the tests measure”. The biases in the development and administration of standardized tests often contribute to the achievement gap between whites and minorities. As a result students from low-income and minority families, English Language Learners, and students with disabilities are more likely to be held back a grade, be placed in unnecessary remedial education programs, and be denied a diploma (Reese, pg. 1). Another problem with standardized testing is the tests do not accurately measure teacher quality. Standardized tests are often used to evaluate teachers and schools staff based on their student’s scores. However, standardized tests are limited indicators of student knowledge and progress; therefore they do not reflect the wide range of knowledge and skills a teacher covers in the classroom. It is unfair to isolate the impact of one individual because teaching is a collaborative and developmental process (FairTest, pg. 1). People think that if standardized test scores are high they can label teachers as

Popham (2001) questioned the ethics of teachers overly concerned with students’ performance on high-stakes tests by providing instruction that cloned test questions or by teaching the same items that were expected to dominate tests. Popham also firmly stated that test prep, inappropriate test preparation and questionable teaching practices should be stopped. Even when teachers recognized a lack of integrity, the score-boosting pressure that teachers experienced pushed them toward practices that, without such pressure, they would regard as a disservice to students.