INSTRUCTIONALLY SUPPORTIVE NCLB TESTS:
WHY THEY'RE NEEDED, HOW TO GET THEM
W. James Popham
University of California, Los Angeles

The Problem

1. Instructionally supportive accountability tests are those that (1) measure only a modest number of super-significant curricular aims, (2) supply lucid teacher-palatable descriptions of what's to be assessed, and (3) provide instructionally informative results so that a student's mastery of each assessed curricular aim can be determined.

2. If a state's NCLB tests are not instructionally supportive, then many of that state's public schools will soon be identified as ineffectual because of students' failure to make adequate yearly progress on tests whose very nature makes such progress essentially unattainable.

3. If a state's NCLB tests are not instructionally supportive, then the state's public school students will be educationally harmed because of (1) curricular reductionism, (2) excessive test-preparation, (3) unethical test-preparation/test-administration, and (4) the resultant widespread perception that the state's public schools are unsuccessful.

4. If a state's NCLB tests are not instructionally supportive, then an increased number of NCLB-induced school failures will surely cause the state's public school educators to be held in lower esteem by the state's citizens and policymakers than is currently the case.

5. A major impediment to the creation of instructionally supportive NCLB tests in most states is a sprawling array of curricular aims---content standards crafted at a different time and for a different purpose.

6. Another equally important obstacle to the creation of instructionally supportive NCLB tests is often the absence of a commitment to do so on the part of a state's educational leadership.

The Solution

1. Unless the chief state school officer (CSSO) insists that a state's NCLB tests must be instructionally supportive, and devotes sufficient energy/resources to ensure that instructionally supportive NCLB tests become a reality, there is no sense in moving forward.

2. A small CSSO-appointed committee of 3-5 hard-thinking individuals should be appointed with the sole purpose of monitoring the state's movement toward the creation of instructionally supportive NCLB tests so that the CSSO can be apprised, possibly on a monthly basis, of progress toward the creation of those tests.

3. A somewhat larger committee of curriculum and assessment specialists, persons chosen for their intellectual rigor and creativity, should derive---from the state's existing content standards---a modest number of re-conceptualized, super-significant content standards that will serve as the state's standards-based NCLB assessment framework.

4. Descriptions of the skills and knowledge to be measured according to this assessment framework should be created by the same committee, so that the state's educators will readily understand what curricular aims are being assessed at every grade level by the state's instructionally supportive NCLB tests.

5. Suggested instructional approaches to help teachers promote students' mastery of the modest number of high-import content standards being assessed by the state's NCLB tests should be identified by the same committee. Because there will be only a few assessment-based curricular foci per grade and subject field, the state's teachers need to become truly proficient in promoting students' mastery of those curricular aims. The committee's instructional suggestions would be the initial step in a concerted state-sponsored effort to enhance the instructional capabilities of the state's educators to achieve the truly significant curricular aims assessed by the new NCLB tests.

Based on a presentation to State
Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto
and her Dept. of Education staff
Honolulu, Hawaii
April 17, 2003