Even if you know a lot about the mechanics of high-stakes tests, you should also be asking questions of your school about which ones are being used and for what purposes. You may want to begin with the some of the following questions:
- What test(s) is being used at which grade levels? It's a good idea to not only know the name of the test your child is taking (examples would include the Terra Nova and the Metropolitan) but how often it will be given as well. There really is no reason to perform different versions of the same test on a yearly basis. Your child's scores are unlikely to vary significantly and in order to get a comprehensive snapshot of the district's achievement, it's a better idea to look at the scores of a few different grade levels. If your child is being tested year after year, it's probably time to ask why.
- What is the format of the test? Check with the school to see whether the test is multiple-choice, essay or other format. If multiple-choice, make sure it has been validated and found to be culturally diverse. Essentially, you want to know id there are there different forms of the test and whether the various forms have shown consistent, reliable results. In other words: Do students scores stay the same when taking variations of the same test?) If essay format, ask for a copy of the rubric on which it will be judged, to know by whom it will be graded and whether the grading is done blindly or with your child's name known.
- What is this test designed to measure? There is variability in what tests are designed measure and variability in how they measure it. Achievement tests measure subject-specific knowledge (what your child concretely knows) and aptitude tests measure potential (how well your child uses skills such as logical reasoning and problem-solving). Sometimes a test is given merely to see how the children in a school or district are preforming as compared to the rest of the schools in the state, in which case the test is less about your child and more about his teacher(s).
- How is the test scored and how are those results interpreted? This question is pretty simple. Here you're looking to know what scoring process is used and some information as to how to figure out what those scores mean. Most schools will provide information about what scores mean when they give parents the results.
- How will the results of the test be used and are significant educational decisions riding on the results? Are the results compared with the results of previous testing to determine a pattern, either for individual students or the district/school as a whole? It's important to note that no high-stakes decision can be made accurately on the basis of one test score. Because of things like variability of testing conditions and the varying content that tests survey, it's more accurate to take a look at the trend of performance a student exhibits over the course of a number of tests given throughout his educational career. It's much more appropriate to make placement or other decisions when a number of tests show that a student remains steadily in a certain percentile or at a particular grade level.
- Is the test aligned to the school's curriculum? This is important. If your school's funding or your child's educational future is reliant on this test, you'll need to know whether the students are being tested on information they have learned.
- What provisions are made during testing or on the test to ensure that results of students with disabilities are valid? A student's IEP should already contain information about the student-specific accommodations necessary for testing situations. Basically, you want to confirm that the school will be following these accommodations and to know if the results are counted differently than other students.