Sabotaging CAP Tests

As the 1988-1989 school year wanes and many of us teachers weary of holding summer-bound students in their seats, here are a few thoughts concerning the California Assessment Program.

You published the high school senior CAP scores in reading and math (Metro, April 26). A subsequent article about a group of Torrance High School seniors who “sabotaged” the CAP test and caused the school scores to plunge was not surprising (April 27). The CAP test, alone among the “required” tests, demands a degree of motivation and cooperation toward a common goal that is not fostered in the routine of schooling.

Other tests give explicit messages to the student. The Basic Competency Exam has consequences; pass or you will not graduate. The California Test of Basic Skills has visibility; the results appear on your permanent record card. The PSAT and the SAT have perquisites; get a good score and you may qualify for a scholarship and/or get into a good college.

The CAP test, on the other hand, is not an individual achievement test but a group test. Students are not measured against their peers on a test that all take similarly, but instead several versions of a test are handed out randomly, and students are told to work hard, do well, so that the school will benefit.

This is a laudable goal, I believe, but if students are to believe it, then where in the four previous years of high school have they been enjoined to perform academically for the “honor” of the school? Of course there are academic competitions between schools--speech and debate tournaments, music competitions, academic Olympiads, etc.--but where else in their schooling are they asked, as a group, to do pencil and paper work in order to uphold the reputation of the school (as in the Torrance case) or to improve the reputation of the school (as in the case in the school in which I teach)?

If we are going to ask American students to subordinate individual goals to the welfare of the group on a group test, then we are going to have to teach against a very stubborn grain indeed, the notion of individual reward.

The Torrance students are reflecting an awareness of a testing enterprise that not only fails to reward them but contains implicit values that are not taught or practiced for the most part in academic settings. They sent a negative signal of a group potential that education and perhaps American society has missed.

ELSIE HARBER

Claremont