Professionals are unsure about the validity of SAGE testing

A psychologist and senator are still unsure about the validity of the Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence test, administered to students this April and May.

Senator Aaron Osmond, R-Salt Lake City is concerned that the test won’t be as valid if students are opting out.

“What if in one district we have 30% of students opt out and in the next only 5%,” Osmond said. “How can we treat each district fairly on school grading and teacher assessments if more than one-third of their students are opting out? It isn’t really a valid and reliable instrument anymore.”

Some school districts have more students opting out than others, which causes the test results for the schools to be off.

“Are we really achieving what we want the test to achieve?” Osmond said. “The kids know that these tests don’t affect their grade and it doesn’t matter, so they don’t really take the test seriously.”

Psychologist Dr. Gary Thompson had a lot of concern about the validity of the test as well.

“I’m against inaccurate standardized testing,” Thompson said. “We are just taking the words of a private publishing company that says it measures academics, and there is no proof to that.”

He had asked American Institutes for research, the publisher of the test, for validity studies but Thompson said they never answered back with their validity tests

AIR created the test along with Utah committee members..

“Valid just means true, so when someone says a test is valid really what they are saying, are that the claims about the test is true and reasonably well supported,” said Jon Cohen, executive vice president of AIR.

He said the company goes through various lengths to create the questions as well as look at the data after the tests to determine validity.

“We look at the reliability of the test, that is how precise the estimates are for the test,” he said.

Locally Directed Education group talks SAGE

A group of concerned parents congregated at the Sandy Public Library tonight at 7:00 p.m. to listen to two speakers talk about Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence testing and parental rights.

“I am worried about the direction education is taking as a whole,” said Wendell Ashby, who coordinated the event. “We are seeing less and less teaching and more and more directives given from districts, states, federal entities, private corporations, legislatures and I don’t believe that is the best outcome for education.”

He said he became involved because he is a concerned parent and is worried where the education system is headed.

Ashby invited speakers Christel Swasey and Heather Gardner to speak.

Swasey spoke about why parents should opt their children out of SAGE testing. She focused on the data the government and different corporations such as American Institute for Research receives when a student takes the SAGE test.

Gardner focused on parental rights and education. She told the story of her children and the problems she faced with SAGE testing and trying to opt her kids out.

Her kids were opted out of SAGE testing, but the charter school they attended still tried to force her children to take a test in some form.

“I had written an opt out letter that I didn’t want my children participating in the SAGE or the portal of any of the tests,” Gardner said. “Then my sixth grader came home and told me that they had made her log on to the portal to practice the test.”

The charter school which Gardner’s kids were attending eventually sent a letter to her saying that the school couldn’t accommodate her requests.

Gardner deeply encouraged the audience to learn and know their parental rights. She wanted parents to know what actions they are able to take with their children and the education system.

Another member of Locally Directed Education and member of their homeschool group attended the event as well.

“I am locally involved, politically involved I am passionate about education,” said Alisha Jensen, member of Locally Directed Education “As parents we have to decide what the purpose of education is. I believe that our children should be protected and that parents have ultimate authority.”

Utah State Senator irritated about end-of-level written test

Utah state senator is mad the written portion of the Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence test was taken by students in February. The test was supposed to be an end-of-level test, taken at the end of the year.

“On the first of February, fifth graders were required to take end-of-level writing assessments,” said Senator Howard Stephenson. “That’s preposterous to say that February is end-of-level.”

Students in Utah took the writing portion of the SAGE test in February because graders needed time to hand-grade the test.

“Because it is hand-graded and it goes with the Language Arts grade they want the test scores to be out by the end of the year,” said Sarah Hancock, a fifth grade teacher at Garland Elementary School.

She said it was really stressful and frustrating for the students to take an end-of-year writing test half-way through the school year.

“no one felt like the kids were prepared,” Hancock said.

Stephenson also said the schools are using computer labs for end-of-level testing, which he thought should be used for student instruction instead.

The SAGE test is an adaptive test so it is administered on computers. The students also have to take practice tests on the computers as well.

“They go to the computer lab twice a week for a half an hour each,” Hancock said.

She said the practice tests sometimes have more than one right answer and students have to move things on the screen and place them in certain ways.

“The kids aren’t used to it at all, which is why we are trying to do all these practice tests,” Hancock said. “We spend at least two hours a week working on them.”

Senators want to re-evaluate SAGE testing

Two Utah Senators are re-evaluating the Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence test, which is a high-stakes, end-of-level test in Utah. The senators have started re-evaluating the test after calling for a suspension in February.

“We would like to rethink whether we should even have high-stake, end-of-level tests,”

said Senator Howard Stephenson, R-Salt Lake City. “We are focusing on teaching to the test and that’s not always what is best for students.”

Stephenson said he doesn’t like that teachers and schools are judged based on student’s performance on a single test.

“If I were the king of Utah I would want to get rid of the SAGE test today,” Stephenson said

The senators are having the state school board, state office of education and the Education Interim Committee look at the testing as a whole to try and create smaller assessments throughout the year rather than having a larger test at the end of the year to base everything off of.

In September the two senators will have a meeting with the state school board, the board of regents and Legislative Education Committee where they will all sit down together and re-evaluate.

“We formed a committee to evaluate what we are doing with SAGE testing, why we are doing it and if it really is achieving what our goal was,” said Senator Aaron Osmond, R-Salt Lake City.

He also said they spend a lot of money on testing infrastructure, so they want to be sure the money is worth it.

The SAGE test is worth about $47.3 million, and has a five year contract.

This year will only be the second year the test has been in place.

“If you put something in place you have to be careful and make sure that you don’t just rip it out two years later and say you screwed up,” Osmond said. “You have to be conscious about how you transition and move to something else.”

Concerned mothers speak to public about SAGE

Two speakers will be sharing their insights about high-stakes standardized testing on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. in Sandy, Utah. The speakers, Christel Swasey and Heather Gardner, parent activists, will be speaking to a group called Locally Directed Education.

Swasey said she will be focusing on encouraging other parents and students to opt out of the Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence test.

“My number one reason that I am opting my children out of SAGE and encouraging other people also to do the same is the State Longitudinal Database System,” Swasey said.

The SLDS is a program that is linked to a schools’ student information system in order for districts and schools to access assessments, attendance, grades and courses.

She said when children take the SAGE test, their data is submitted into this system for the government to see.

“We are not properly protected in our children’s privacy rights. That is the number one reason I don’t do SAGE,” Swasey said.

She will also speak about how the SAGE test is based from Common Core standards and the adaptive testing of the SAGE test.

Gardner is going to share her story about SAGE testing at the event.

“We basically got kicked out of our charter school for opting out of testing,” Gardner said. “We worked on getting legislation passed so that kids can opt out of any state administered test.”

Gardner is going to focus on parent’s rights in both the state and federal government.

Senator Aaron Osmond recently released a bill regarding parental rights with standardized testing.

“Many parents have expressed concerns to me that first of all, the privacy of the student is not protected,” Osmond said. “Second, is the questions themselves are not consistent with the values in the state of Utah.”

Osmond said he wanted to give concerned parents the option of opting their child out of a state-mandated test.

State board committee discusses senate bill

The state board committee met with Senator Aaron Osmond on Thursday evening in Salt Lake City to discuss students opting out of state-mandated tests.

In the meeting they discussed Osmond’s senate bill 204, which outlines parental rights in public education.

Senate bill 204 states: “at the request of a student’s parent or guardian, a Local Education Agency shall excuse a student from taking an assessment that is federally mandated, is mandated by the state under this title; or requires the use of a state assessment system; or software that is provided or paid by the state.”

State board and committee member Linda Hansen said there were two big changes made to the bill.

“Before, they could just opt out of summative stage but now they can opt out of formative, interim and summative stage,” Hansen said.

The summative test, Hansen references, is the Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence test taken at the very end of the year. The interim test is an optional SAGE test, but given in the middle of the year, if the school district decides to administer the test. Formative testing is any kind of test.

If a teacher asks a student a question in class, it would be an example of formative testing, Hansen said.

Another change that was made allows parents to opt out with a 24-hour notice. Before the parent had to give a five day notice.

“I think that parents need to understand that it is an advantage to them to find out how their children are doing,” Hansen said. “If they opt out, the parents don’t know how their children are doing.”

The school board committee has the ability to look at the senate bills and decide how they are going to implement it in the district.

“All that they did with their rule about my bill was to give guidance to the district about what they need to do, how to implement it and what the actual steps for opting out will be,” Osmond said.

SAGE test is converted to American Sign Language for the first time

Utah’s deaf schools will be experiencing parts of the Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence test in American Sign Language for the first time this May.

The state of Utah spent $7.2 million to convert the SAGE test into ASL.

Michelle Tanner, associate superintendent of the deaf, originally thought the test would have had ASL videos when the SAGE test came out last year.

“When that didn’t come we requested it this year,” Tanner said. “I was not aware that it was coming for spring testing.”

Only the listening passages of the test will be converted into ASL.

"I am grateful that the listening passages will be interpreted,” she said. “That is not everything, but it is a good start and that will be helpful, if it works and the ASL is accurate.”

Tanner said they will still be hiring interpreters for other portions of the test.

“We also have to schedule a lot of interpreters to make sure this is accessible for our students,” Tanner said. “So it is pricey and requires time to schedule.”

Teresa Owino, a high school teacher who teaches about 14 deaf students from Jean Massieu School for the Deaf, has to work on getting tutors for her students as well.

“This year the test is supposed to have the ASL interpretation videos for the SAGE test, but since we cannot fully rely on that to happen, we have arranged for interpreters to be present for all testing,” Owino said.

They have seen a practice video to see if the video will work.

“One practice test we looked at did indeed have the video up and running,” Owino said. “We will see how it goes once we get to the real test in May.”

Logan City School District implements help in Language Arts

Due to the low Language Arts test scores recorded last year, new ideas are being implemented in Logan City School District this year to prepare children for the Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence test, which is administered in April and May.

In 2014, the first year the test was administered, the district scored 1.9% above the Utah state average in Science, and .1% above the average in Mathematics. However, they scored 2.3% below average in Language Arts.

“We’ve gotten students more involved and more engaged in more complex, higher-level reading, in particular with Language Arts,” said Daryl Guymon, director of curriculum for Logan City School District.

Guymon said the students who are struggling may not be pushed as needed to read more complex reading, with the support they need.

“We do a lot more close reading with support to help engage them more,” Guymon said. “We are involved in a lot more writing then we have ever been.”

Logan district has more students who come from lower-income families than Cache County School District, who was the top-scorer last year in the SAGE test.

68% of children in Logan City School District qualify for free or reduced price lunch and 33% racial minorities, whereas Cache County only has 42% who qualify for reduced lunch and 11.3% identify as racial minorities.

“There is a pretty big difference in what we are dealing with,” Guymon said.

Jen Green, a third grade teacher at Logan School District’s Adams Elementary School said she has been trying to focus on the new Utah standards.

In 2014 Utah implemented new state standards for schools in order to increase proficiency throughout the state and help students prepare for future life pursuits.

“We are making sure the kids understand the different things in the standards,” Green said.

According to Green, teachers are using a lot of graphic organizers, pictures and story maps to help students interpret difficult stories.

Cache County School District feels pressure for upcoming SAGE test

Last year’s top scoring school district, Cache County, is feeling the pressure to score well in its upcoming Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence test, which is administered from April 13 to May 22.

“Cache County has done awesome in the testing,” said Robyn Hedgcock, an assessment associate for the district.

Last year was the first year the district began administering the SAGE test.

“The first year put pressure on us to test well this year too,” Hedgcock said.

According to Hedgecock switching to the new core curriculum standards in the 2012 school year jump-started the student’s scores.

“I suspect that is why our students have done so well,” Hedgcock said.

Brittany Foster, the assistant principal at Mountain Crest High School, said their goal is to remain at the top this year.

“We have high expectations for our students and high expectations for our teachers and we want to meet those expectations,” Foster said.

Mountain Crest High School created a formal professional learning community in the school. This community helps teachers work together in different departments and grade levels to create common assessments that show teachers how students are doing and how the teachers can help students improve.

“Not that we are focusing on testing but we’re focusing on student learning and what data is showing,” she said.

The school uses the data to determine whether or not student performance is improving.

Mountain Crest High School also created a selective period or study hall where students can visit with teachers for remediation, homework and to receive extra help and tutoring, Foster said.

Superintendent Steven Norton of Cache County School District attributed them districts success to its teachers and the instruction that is given in the classrooms on a daily basis.

“We believe that what you do on an everyday basis with quality instruction in the classroom will take care of getting the kids ready for testing,” Norton said.

“I feel like it was our duty and obligation to get our students prepared,” he said.

Child psychologist gives up after making public cries for SAGE test validity

A child psychologist surrendered his efforts to validate the standardized test called Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence, which is administered to students this April and May.

A valid test means that the test is proven to measure what it is supposed to measure.

“I’ve done all that I can do professionally,” said Gary Thompson, a psychologist and director of clinical training for the Early Life of Psychology and Education Center. “I pointed out the obvious, and lawmakers decided to go another route.”

Thompson said the lawmakers wanted to make the issue political.

“I don’t do politics or public policy, that is somebody else’s gig so to speak,” he said.

A year ago Thompson offered $100,000 to the Utah State Office of Education in order for them to provide validity tests for the SAGE test. “They don’t have any validity studies whatsoever,” Thompson said. “We are just taking the words of a private test publishing company that says it measures academics and there is no proof for that.”

It was the Utah lawmaker’s job to weigh the evidence and then make a choice, Thompson said.

“Our job as scientists is to inform the community and lawmakers about ethics and science in an objective manner… and then we are done,” he said.

Thompson’s concerns for validity were never answered. “There are no validity tests and we have no clue what this test measures or what it doesn’t measure,” Thompson said.

Thompson’s practice involves academic and psychological testing, the tests the practice uses have to be valid tests. “By law we have to use tests that have gone through validity studies and we have to review those studies prior to giving them to kids,” Thompson said.

Thompson felt like they did their job to receive the correct validity reports. “As a professional, this was not our problem. We are objective doctors, not activists or politicians,” he said.

American Institutes for Research, AIR, helped produce the test and made a five year contract with the state of Utah for the SAGE test. Executive vice president, AIR and president of AIR assessment said they showed the correct validity required.

“In Utah the teachers are very involved in the writing and development,” said Jon Cohen, the executive vice president for AIR. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t put them through all of the various checks that need to happen in order to ensure construct validity, which is that you are measuring what you say you are measuring.”

According to State School Board member cost of SAGE test is too high

The high cost of the standardized test called Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence administered to students in April and May has one Utah School Board member concerned.

“We are spending an enormous amount of money, way above what we expect a standardized test to tell us,” said Terryl Warner, Utah State School Board District One member.

The state of Utah worked with American Institutes for Research to create the SAGE test in order to align with House Bill 15, which was passed by Utah Legislation in 2012. The bill required public and charter schools to assess students by adaptive testing, which was to be implemented by the school year 2014-2015.  

The original contract amount with AIR was $40 million, but three amendments were added, increasing the contract amount to be up to $47.3 million over a five year contract period.

“That is a lot of money, so we don’t have a big bank of test questions,” Warner said.

The test questions were created and then fielded by parents, teachers, administrators, professors and committees, who reviewed the questions for Utah, Warner said.

Warner works as a victims advocate at the Cache County Attorney’s Office, which she said provided her with an alternatative view about high-stakes standardized tests.  

“I deal with a lot of kids going through a lot of things,” Warner said. She has witnessed cases of domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse.

“Kids are going through difficult times and the idea that we would put so much pressure on a high stakes standardized test makes absolutely no sense to me,” Warner said.

An assessment assistant at Cache County School District thinks the test will be worth it.

“Regardless of whether we are with SAGE or another form of testing, there will always be a cost involved,” Robyn Hedgecock said.

There are multiple tests including math, English language arts and science. English language arts includes writing, reading, language and listening.

“I think as time goes on they will be teaching students to write a certain way with correct writing standards,” Hedgecock said.

Cache County School District scored the highest in the state in 2014. “It was the initial year, so it put a pressure on us to test well this year,” Hedgecock said. “We started switching to the new core in 2012-2013. I suspect that is why our students have done so well.”

New bumper sticker encourages parents to opt their children out of an annual state test

This week a concerned parent created a bumper sticker and magnet to bring awareness to parents about being able to opt their children out of an annual test.

Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence tests measure a child’s ability to comprehend what they have been learning in class. Students take the test starting in third grade and continue taking it through high school.

A group of parents who have started a Facebook group called Utahns Against Common Core are concerned the SAGE test is too hard, too tedious and the cost of the test is high for the government.

Allison Fisher, a parent from Holladay, Utah, created the bumper sticker because she wanted parents to be more aware of SAGE testing.

“I feel like a lot of people don’t know that it is an option for kids to opt out,” Fisher said.

The bumper sticker reads: “By state law — you can opt your child out of SAGE testing.”

Fisher posted a picture of the sticker on Facebook and asked if anyone was interested in buying one. Fisher said she got more responses than she thought she would. She has received around 30 requests for the bumper sticker so far.

Fisher said she wants to get the word out so parents feel like they have a choice.

Daniel Bracken, a middle school teacher at Matheson Junior High in Magna, Utah, said he had a group of kids opt out last year.

“Last year was the first time we gave the test and a lot of people didn’t know what the test was going to be about,” Bracken said. “If they do want to opt out there is no problem and I have students right now who have opted out for this coming year.”.

Bracken said he thinks that he will have fewer students opt out this year than he did last year.

SAGE testing will begin in either April or May depending on the school. Parents can opt their children out until the day before the test.

The stickers can be purchased through the Utahns Against Common Core Facebook page. Fisher ordered 65 bumper stickers and hopes to receive them sometime around March 23.

Welcome to standardized testing in public schools

Welcome to standardizedtestinginpublicschools.blogspot.com where journalist Bethany Heywood reports about testing in public schools. New standardized tests are being implemented in Utah school districts. This website will cover testing in school districts and how the teachers, students, parents and taxpayers feel about standardized testing.