Students
put new statewide exams to the test
Pilot program requires youngsters to apply
what they have learned
Tuesday, December 28, 2004 • BY JOHN MOONEY •
Star-Ledger Staff
Zal Spialter knows firsthand the challenge of moving
across a maze of high school hallways to get to class on
time, but never before was he asked to break it down using a
ruler and a calculator.
And certainly never before was such a task included in a
state graduation test.
But the question was part of a pilot program of new
tests that the 16-year-old Westfield High School junior
tried out this month in which he was required not only to
know his mathematical formulas and computations but also to
apply them.
The tests -- taking place in 40 districts -- were just
practice for now and have several years of development
before they will be administered statewide.
But combined with the existing tests of short answers
and multiple choices, the new so-called "performance
assessments" could add a whole new generation of testing to
the state's annual exams.
"It's certainly more fun," Zal said afterward. "I was
definitely more into it."
Those are unusual words from a kid who just took a test,
but this is an unusual test.
First introduced as a pilot in 2002 by former Gov. James
E. McGreevey, the new tests ask students to perform a much
broader task than the state's existing exams, which cover
math, science and language arts.
Developed by teams of teachers and consultants, one of
the science tasks asks students to set up a lab experiment
to test the viability of new skateboard materials. A
sixth-grade language arts task requires students to invent a
classmate using traits described in three readings, as well
as their own personal tastes.
For the Westfield students, their math test was a single
word problem in which a student must persuade a vice
principal that it is mathematically impossible to make it
from one end of a fictional high school to the other in the
allotted three minutes between classes.
The problem comes in three pages, including a map of
"Memorial High School" and various parameters about how fast
the students can travel (3 mph), how to measure distance
(rate x time), and the Pythagorean Theorem (a¯ +
b¯=c¯).
"You will have 80 minutes," said teacher Kathleen Dix,
whose 11th-grade math class was one of four at the school
taking the test last week.
The map throws a couple of twists at the problem as
well, including several hallways and intersections that are
especially crowded and require a student to slow down to 1
mph.
"Additionally, you cannot make up lost time by running,"
reads the problem, "because this, too, is against school
rules."
Students also had to write a persuasive essay in the
form of a letter to the vice principal to make their
case.
"I thought that was language arts," one of Dix's
students said of the writing assignment.
"That's the point," exclaimed Regina Kiczek, Westfield's
math supervisor. "If you can't come up with a convincing
argument (to go with the solution), it would be just like
writing a number on a paper."
Kiczek, who also oversaw similar pilot tests given to
classes in her sixth and eighth grades, wasn't tossing out
the value of the more traditional multiple-choice
tests.
"I think there is a place for all of these things," she
said. "But in the real world, the math problems you deal
with are in carpeting a room and needing to know how many
square feet you have and how much money it will cost."
The hope is to combine the various testing methods in
the state's tests, maybe in two or three years' time.
The state is now seeking an outside contractor to
develop the more traditional tests over the next four years,
and it would integrate the performance assessment into those
tests, officials said. The one difference is these would be
developed and scored by local teachers.
But there are many challenges to overcome before then,
including the sheer logistics of administering and scoring
tens of thousands of these assessments each year.
A big challenge also will be getting it past the federal
government, which must approve the state's tests if they are
to be used to rate schools under the No Child Left Behind
Act. No other states use such assessments under the
act.
Willa Spicer, a former assistant superintendent of South
Brunswick, has been the chief architect of the new program.
Working under the state's principals and supervisors
association with funding mostly from the state, she has
convened the teachers and consultants to develop the program
and seen the program through its first pilot year in 11
districts.
Now the challenge will only grow with the numbers. But
she said safeguards can be put in place to maintain its
reliability, including having up to four readers to score
each task. The first scoring will take place in a daylong
session in January.
"I think I can prove that this is reliable and has
validity (as a statewide assessment)," Spicer said. "Maybe
it won't be as much as all those short-answer tests, but
then we'd be getting data from this that is so much more
useful in the classroom."
John Mooney covers education. He may be reached at
jmooney@starledger.com, or 973-392-1548.
© 2004 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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