My wife is a professional educator. She’s also a graduate student working on her Master’s degree in education.
As English is not her native language, I’ve had nearly nine years now of proofreading her papers for non-native grammatical mistakes. That’s given me a fascinating opportunity to read the coursework for her degree programs. As a non-educator, what I’ve learned shocks even the cynic in me. I’ve got some thoughts on the whole thing that I’ll be posting later.
In the meantime, I want to recount a story told to me by a friend who runs a business near a local high school.
A high school student came into his store. As it happens, the kid had a $92 credit with the store. He made to purchase $115 worth of merchandise. My friend rang him up and told him how much the total was and how much he owed: $23.
The kid’s response was, “What? My credit’s not enough?â€
“No. You had $92 in credit, the bill $115.â€
“That’s why I hate math!â€, he replied.
It’s OK to hate math, I’m not crazy about it myself, but I’d be hesitant to even call that worthy of the term “math problemâ€. He didn’t even seem to know that 92 was less than 115.
How did he get into High School?
Is it any wonder that people are crying for some way to feel like their education tax money is being put to good use? These types of stories may be anecdotal, but they’re not necessarily apocryphal.
A few years ago, Arizona’s legislature passed into law a requirement that all high school students must pass a standardized test to graduate. This was met by heaps of scorn and derision by much of the professional education community. Testing, they argued, is bad. Children need to be evaluated on several levels, individually crafted for each child, not just the ability to pass tests.
I say, “bullocks!â€
There are perfectly valid cases for using tests. Math, spelling and grammar are subjects that spring immediately to mind because they are comprised of “factsâ€, for lack of a better word. There is no way you can subjectively decide that 2+2=5, or that “orange†is spelled O-H-R-E-N-J or that a sentence can be complete without a subject (explicit or implied) and a predicate just because Johnny needs to be evaluated based on his individual needs.
Despite the resistance, the law is the law and Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards, AKA the AIMS test, was born.
The Arizona Department of Education web page has some of the AIMS tests results. The earliest I could get data for was 2002, where a staggering 71% failed the mathematics portion of the test.
Originally a state-mandated standardized test required for High School graduation, it has since been adopted as Arizona’s measurement instrument of the No Child Left Behind Act.
Since then, they’ve made the AIMS test easier!
Did that improve things?
If you look at the AIMS scores for Spring 2007, you’d see the following
| Test | Mean Score | FFB | A | M | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mathematics | 696 | 27 | 15 | 48 | 11 |
| Reading | 699 | 9 | 24 | 60 | 7 |
| Writing | 696 | 5 | 27 | 60 | 9 |
The AIMS tests for High School has a maximum score of 900 on each section, so these mean scores in the high 600’s don’t look so bad, do they? It’s a pity the lowest possible score is 500. A less deceptive scoring range would show mean scores of less than 200 out of 400 – lower than 50%.
The other columns are “E†for Exceeds standard, “M†for Meets standard, “A†for Approaches standard (that’s the nicest way I’ve ever heard to say, “you failedâ€), and finally FFB. You could probably come up with all sorts of amusing things that might fit, but in this case it officially means Falls Far Below standard.
Since you have to pass all three sections, that means at most 59% of the kids can pass this test. That is abysmal! (Just in case any high school are reading this, “abysmal†means “really, really badâ€.)
These kids get to take this test three times in three years and if they fail to pass it, are forbidden by law from graduating high school. That should be good enough incentive for anyone to knuckle under and just pass the damned thing.
I’m also privy to some of the feedback from students (directly and indirectly) who have taken the test and they complain it’s too hard.
Is it too hard, or are they completely ill-prepared?
Under the Federal No Child Left Behind Act, a controversial law at best, failing students are entitled to tutoring. My wife tutors part-time for struggling eighth graders. These kids cannot multiply, divide or understand fractions. Most of them are Hispanic and they can’t read and understand word problems, because they can’t read English.
I realize a non-native speaker presents some challenging educational problems, but if they cannot understand, how did they get into Eighth grade? Who let them in without the necessary linguistic or mathematical skills?
Are the AIMS tests really “too hard†or are the kids just lack the knowledge to pass it? How does this test stack up to the standardized tests we used to take when I was in school, 25+ years ago?
My curiosity burns to see an actual AIMS test, but, of course, they’re top secret. You cannot see a real one unless you’re taking it.
There are a series of sample AIMS tests. These sample tests are characterized as being appropriate to give students an idea of what the test is like. Teachers who have administered the AIMS test tell us that the sample test is a suitable approximation.
I decided to take the sample AIMS High School test for me own evaluation of how hard it is.
Points that make this a totally unscientific and completely subjective evaluation
- The sample test consists of Reading, Writing and Mathematics (The Three R’s). Since there was no way for me to evaluate the Writing section, I skipped it; however, it is nothing more than a simple essay on a single topic.
- Current students prepare for weeks, sometimes months to take the test. I made no preparation whatsoever.
- Current students have, supposedly, been studying these subjects day in and day out for years. I haven’t seen any high school curricula material in 25 years.
- My education was entirely in Arizona, so my education should be similar to theirs.
- By way of disclaimer, I generally always aced standardized tests usually placing in the 99th percentile, but I’ve been known to fluff a few and only score in the high 80s.
- I never prepared for tests back then, either.
- Scoring is a bit difficult, since the sample test is shorter. Based on previous score data available at the Arizona Department of Education website, my scores have been proportionally adjusted to allow apples to apples comparison. (Example: Reading test has 54 points maximum, sample test only has 27. My score was doubled to match the 54-point scale. That also means my mistakes were doubled.)
There was no immediately obvious way to convert the raw score to the 500-900 point scale because it wasn’t strictly linear, but the raw scores can be mapped to the FFB, A, M and E scale. - I always liked to be the first done when taking a test. The competition drove me, therefore I also had a friend take the test at the same time so I could try to rush and beat him.
- My “competition†also graduated high school in Arizona about the same time I did, but in a different part of the state.
I’d really like to tell you I scored a 100%, but I didn’t.
In reading, I easily scored an exceeding standard score. (I only missed one, and it was a careless mistake.)
In mathematics, I only scored a meets standard score. It was still good enough to pass, but nothing exceptional.
In my defense, of the questions I missed, 3 were on math items neither of us had ever heard of before They were certain types of graphical representations of populations which we never touched on. I’ve gone on and taken more maths at University, so I would expect that I had at least been exposed to everything that was on a High School test, but that was not the case. The three questions were dead simple if you knew what they were talking about and that would have pushed my score into exceeding standard.
If you’ve ever wondered how you’d do on the AIMS test, try out the samples yourself.
What’s clear to me after having taken the sample test is that there is nothing there that should be beyond the capabilities of a high schooler. So why can’t they pass it?
I’ve got more on this one later…