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Staying on Course
Staying on Course
In Education Reform
by Paul E. Barton
POLICY
INFORMATION
PERSPECTIVE
Statistics & Research
Division
Policy Information
Center Additional copies of this report can be
ordered for $10.50 (prepaid) from:
Policy Information Center
Mail Stop 04-R
Educational Testing Service
Rosedale Road
Princeton, NJ 08541-0001
(609) 734-5694
Internet pic@ets.org
http://www.ets.org
Copies can also be downloaded from:
www.ets.org/research/pic
Copyright © 2002 by Educational
Testing Service. All rights reserved.
Educational Testing Service is an
Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity
Employer. The modernized ETS
logo is a trademark of Educational
Testing Service.
April 2002 S
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T
ABLE

OF
C
ONTENTS
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Asking the Right Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Forces Shaping Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Two Worlds, Not One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Finding Thoughtful Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Keeping Our Eyes on the Curriculum and Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Moving Beyond Quantity to Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
An Authoritative Voice for Quality Assessment? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Summing Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2
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REFACE
The No Child Left Behind Act, signed by
President George W. Bush in January 2002,
greatly expands the requirements for setting
standards, testing students, and accountabil-
ity based on these test results. It is an impor-
tant and ambitious piece of legislation.
Educational Testing Service (ETS) has
strongly supported this expansion of the
already growing standards-based reform move-
ment. It believes that the use of quality stan-
dardized tests can be an important element
in efforts to improve achievement. ETS has
an equally strong interest in the scope and
quality of the implementation of the
standards-based reform approach and, more
specifically, in the implementation of the new
Federal requirements. There are many ways
to go wrong during implementation, and
there is always a temptation to take shortcuts.
The road ahead to a payoff from the new law
is a long one, and care and perseverance will
be essential.
This report by Paul Barton reviews the
experience of the last couple of decades on edu-
cation reform, and the use of standardized test-
ing during that time. It chronicles a story of
success and achievement. But it also chronicles
missteps, shortcomings, and incompleteness
in implementation of all the elements of
standards-based reform. Being aware of this
experience will help inform the implementa-
tion of the new Federal requirements.
The report also addresses what is meant
by full implementation of the standards-based
reform approach. In doing this, it draws from
the testimony given by Kurt Landgraf, Presi-
dent of Educational Testing Service, last March
before the House Committee on Education
and the Workforce, addressing the reforms then
being proposed by President Bush. Landgraf
set forth criteria for the expansion of standards-
based reform; at the present time, in most
states, implementation falls considerably short
of meeting these criteria.
Obviously, ETS has a vested interest in
how these matters play out. It is a testing
agency, and it is also chartered to carry out
research in education policy and practice. Its
Policy Information Center tries to provide
useful information to policy makers that can
help them in their deliberations.
Drew Gitomer
Senior Vice President
Statistics and Research
Educational Testing Service S
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A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
As I went through several drafts of this manu-
script, I received comments and advice from a
number of people who have a wide range of
perspectives and experience. I thank them for
their help. They include John Barth, National
Education Goals Panel; Emerson Elliott,
NCATE; Chester Finn Jr., Thomas B.
Fordham Foundation; Samuel Halperin,
American Youth Policy Forum; John Jennings,
Center on Education Policy; Roberts Jones,
National Alliance of Business; Richard
Kahlenberg, Century Foundation; Glenda
Partee, American Youth Policy Forum; Rich-
ard Rothstein, Economic Policy Institute;
Susan Traiman, Business Roundtable; and
Emily Wurtz, National Education Goals Panel.
At Educational Testing Service, this report
was reviewed by Ted Chittenden, Dan Eignor,
John Fremer, Drew Gitomer, Archie Lapointe,
and Harold Wenglinsky.
While many of the above would agree with
much that is said in the paper, some would
likely disagree with specific points, the empha-
sis given to some developments, or interpreta-
tions of roles played by various sectors. The
views expressed are the sole responsibility of
the author.
Carla Cooper provided desktop publishing,
Martha Mendez and Richard Coley were the
editors, Jim Wert was the cover designer, and
Trina Black was the production coordinator. 4
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I
NTRODUCTION
I
n the late 1980s and early 1990s, an
energetic education reform movement infused the school curricula with challenging
content and built a broad consensus about content standards.
The National Council of Teachers of
Mathematics (NCTM) led the way, defining
a process to be emulated in other subject
areas and in the states. Grants from the U.S.
Department of Education sought to extend
such efforts in science, history, the arts,
civics, geography, foreign languages, and
English. Today, a still energetic education
reform movement is increasingly centered
on standardized testing, where the terms
standards and passing test scores (for
schools, students, and, increasingly, teachers)
are often used interchangeably. A February
2001 PBS show, The News Hour, featured four
discussants on the subject of President Bushs
proposal for testing every student in grades
three through eight every year. Two opposed
the testing proposal and seemingly all or
almost all standardized testing for making
important decisions, and two were emphati-
cally for it and expressed no reservations about
high stakes uses of such testing, such as mak-
ing it the sole criterion of student promotion.
It was almost a caricature of the state of the
national education debate Are you for or
against testing? S
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The reality is that the issue is not testing or
no testing. The important issues have to do
with such questions as:
What kinds of tests are to be used to iden-
tify failing students, failing schools, and
failing teachers?
Are test scores to be a sole criterion, or
should there be multiple criteria for
decisions that affect students, teachers, and
schools?
How do we set a performance standard
when there is such wide dispersion of
achievement levels in any one grade?
How do we create tests, within a reason-
able cost, that capture the full breadth of
the educational experience?
Are we going to hold a teacher or school
accountable for how much math in
total a student knows at the end of the
eighth grade, or for how much progress a
student made during the eighth grade?
2
How much should we care about the
degree to which the test reflects what was
actually taught by the teacher? In a
standards-based reform approach, how
aligned is the test with the content stan-
dards? Have the content standards been
embedded in the curriculum the teacher is
supposed to teach? Is the teacher prepared
to teach the new content on which the
student is tested?
How do we make and use tests that actu-
ally help the teacher tailor instruction to
the needs of an individual student?
There are other questions that