AIMS test questions written by Arizona teachers will be better geared to
what students actually learn in class, local supporters say, but the
change to a home-grown test is also designed to save money.
About 500 Arizona teachers from 60 school districts - including some
from the Tucson area - met over the summer at a Phoenix resort to write
questions for the standardized math, writing and reading tests the state
uses.
Next year, half of the questions students answer on the AIMS tests will
have been written by Arizona teachers and the entire test will be
teacher-written by the 2005-06 school year, Superintendent of Public
Instruction Tom Horne said this week.
Testing company McGraw-Hill previously wrote the questions, which a
majority of Arizona eighth-graders couldn't answer correctly this year
in math and writing.
Students, parents and educators seem supportive of the change.
Palo Verde Magnet High School student Kira Thomas, 14, said a test
written by teachers will more accurately find out if students are
absorbing what they're taught in class.
"If you live in Arizona, you have a better idea of what we're learning
and how we learn it," she said.
Thomas added she doesn't want the test to be too easy. "I want to be
challenged so that in the real world it will be natural for me to get
through problems," she said.
Horne said the Arizona test will not be easier, but students will be
more familiar with the subject matter.
"The questions on the test now were developed by a California company,"
Horne said. "We think students will do better with questions written by
Arizona teachers."
The test students in grades three, five, eight and 10 have been taking
for the past several years consists of questions that are written by and
essentially rented from the testing company.
They are based on what the Arizona Board of Education says students
should know at each level - what educators call academic standards - but
teachers and students have complained that the test and the standards
don't match.
The new test questions will also include more "reasonable" math
questions that will reflect everyday math instead of higher-level math
that college-bound students must know, Horne said.
For example, Arizona teachers suggested to the state, and consequently
the private company that wrote the AIMS questions, that students should
be able to draw information from a matrix. They meant students should be
able to glean the number of home-runs in a baseball game or the highest
temperature for the month of August, said Linda Coe, math department
chair for Sunnyside High School.
Instead, the company sent back test questions asking students to
multiply matrices - a calculus-level skill.
"All they saw from the recommendation was the word matrix and they went
from there," Coe said. "We have to look at what this test is for."
Beginning in 2004-05 all students in grades three-eight - not just those
in three, five and eight - must take AIMS. Beginning with this year's
sophomore class, students must pass the high-school-level test to
graduate.
The Arizona Department of Education has been preparing to change over
the test to teacher-written questions for two years, Horne said. By
2004-05 the state will have two versions of the three-eight tests and
four of the high school test.
Since 2001, large groups of teachers have met over the summer to first
hash out grade-specific academic standards and then to write test
questions. Teachers are hired by testing company Harcourt, put up at a
Phoenix hotel with meals and paid $100 per day for their work, Horne
said.
The process costs about $250,000 annually and is paid by Harcourt, which
now handles the job instead of McGraw-Hill. Arizona pays the testing
company $6.5 million each year to develop, administer and grade the AIMS
test.
Once the new AIMS tests are ready, Arizona will own the questions and
the process will be cheaper in the long run than buying or continuing to
rent a test from a testing company, Horne said. The state will still
have to hire an outside company to administer and grade the tests, he
said.
Horne said he is hoping to make the high-stakes test more palatable to
teachers and parents. "Part of the idea is to get buy-in from the
education community," he said.
Eric Kidd, father of a freshman son and sophomore daughter at Flowing
Wells High School, said he's still not sure requiring students to pass
AIMS to graduate is a good idea, no matter who is writing the test
questions.
Kidd, a self-described former military brat, knows all too well how
different schools have varied expectations for students. Kidd often lost
credits in transferring from school to school and eventually gave up at
the age of 16.
"All of these schools are different," Kidd said. "They may reach the
same point, but they may take different paths to get there."
Gridley Middle School Principal Sharyn Graf supports changing the test
questions, particularly on the eighth-grade math test, which Horne has
singled out as being out of touch with what students are taught.
"I don't know if teachers' writing the questions is the most critical
component of it," Graf said. "But the state will get the insight of
people who are dealing with this on a daily basis."
For more Arizona news, visit
www.azstarnet.com or
www.azfamily.com.
Securitas