Educator Defends Virtues of ‘Misunderstood’ CLAS Test

The results of California’s achievement tests show that most Los Angeles city school students are barely proficient in reading and writing and an even greater number have minimal math skills.

The state’s second California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) tests measure the ability of fourth-, eighth- and 10th-grade students to read, write and solve math problems against tough, statewide standards.

The performance of school districts around the state was uniformly low, prompting a renewed round of criticism of California’s public schools. In Los Angeles, the low scores have sparked renewed efforts to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District.

But the dismal test scores are not likely to be repeated any time soon.

Unfortunately for parents and taxpayers, it is not because school districts have promised to do better. Instead, the CLAS tests--criticized by some parents, conservative groups and politicians as being too intrusive into students’ thoughts and feelings--have been killed.

Many educators say mandatory tests are a needed measure of students and teachers, and the CLAS tests--which had more essays and fewer multiple-choice sections than past tests--were a step in the right direction.

Carolyn Ellner, dean of the School of Education at Cal State Northridge, spoke recently about the demise of the CLAS test and why California needs a new one.

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QUESTION: What did you think about the CLAS tests?

ANSWER: I thought they were leading the way for a new kind of assessment in the country. I think there were some problems with the public acceptance of the CLAS test. More work should have been done to educate the public about the CLAS test and what it was accomplishing.

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Q: Some people complained that the test asked too many subjective questions and was too difficult. What do you think?

A: If a better job of educating the public about CLAS had been done upfront, I don’t think the test would have been so vulnerable. There was a hue and cry about the CLAS test and too many misperceptions about it. Also, the scoring was misunderstood. That scoring was based on world-class standards; it was not meant to be that every child should score a 6 (the highest level). . . . A 3 was probably an acceptable level. A 3 in reading meant that a person could make plain sense of the text, they could report what a newspaper said, for example, and that’s pretty good for most students. The “failure” rate was not as great as you would think. About 25% of the students (statewide) in reading were not proficient readers . . . but about half of the students were scoring at level 3, which meant they were not sophisticated readers but they were about average. I really think the CLAS test was on the right track. It was the only test we had that was statewide.

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Q: What do you think about the demise of a statewide test?

A: We now don’t have a picture of what’s happening in the state and we can’t compare ourselves to world-class standards. The state is working on it. When the state came out with the new curriculum frameworks, the textbook industry had to conform. So now the state will set up a list of acceptable tests and then the commercial manufacturers of the tests are going to have to make sure they conform with the frameworks. But there may be no tests of that (CLAS) kind.

I don’t think CLAS was really functioning fully. I’m sorry that we couldn’t go on and comb the CLAS test to the point where it was a very good instrument for the state of California.

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Q: Should another test like CLAS be developed--and what should it measure?

A: The (CLAS) test measured higher-order thinking--the ability to criticize, analyze--not at the expense of basic skills, like some people thought. You can’t compare the values of two automobiles and whether to buy one or the other, for example, unless you can figure out their prices. But it’s more than the price--you want to read Consumer Reports, you want to shop and talk about the value to the family and other things before you buy that car. You need all those skills, not just the ability to read the price tag.

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Q: Why do you think the latest results were so uniformly poor?

A: I think it sends us a message that we have not reached the world-class standards and that we have to change and improve our methods of teaching. We have to have better assessment techniques--not tests but what people call authentic techniques, like the person’s work. Should we evaluate a reporter, for example, on their articles or by multiple-choice questions? The article is a better way. I think we should focus on the assessment of each child and look at different ways to do that such as the development of portfolios that will show evidence of growth and achievement.

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Q: How do you then compare students--across classes, districts and even the state--if you’re looking at just the individual students’ work?

A: You can measure achievement across students through national norm-referenced tests. There are a lot of these tests that can give you broad comparisons. Teachers can give tests to a class and analyze their work that way. I think we need to focus on the growth of all children. The important thing is for teachers to have the attitude--the certainty--that all children can learn. There’s no ifs, ands or buts about it. Teachers must have high expectations. We can’t be polarized around false arguments, like whether we either teach the basic skills or higher-order thinking.

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Q: How will the lack of a statewide assessment affect teachers? Doesn’t this leave the public without a way to know how well kids are being taught and whether they are learning?

A: No, but it would be nice to have the assessment because we could compare ourselves. I think the more important assessments for teachers are those they can use to impact instruction. If a kid gets a 3 on an essay . . . teachers learn a lot more about the student’s mistakes than what they did right. If you look at an essay or an authentic piece of work a student does and you see the mistake is in addition, then you can go back and teach that piece. Having a national norm test doesn’t allow you to do that.

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Q: Wasn’t CLAS also a way to measure teachers--whether they are effectively teaching the curriculum?

A: There’s a lot of inference from one to another. I wouldn’t want to base a teacher’s salary on a CLAS score, it’s too simplistic. Certainly you expect a teacher to improve a student’s achievement.

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Q: Are teachers trained at CSUN’s education school taught to put much weight on standardized tests?

A: Teachers are taught about the uses--and abuses--of standardized tests . . . how they can be interpreted to improve schooling and how they can be used as a weapon.

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Q: Was CLAS used as a weapon?

A: I think people misinterpreted CLAS and stood in judgment of it before all the data was in. It had the potential for being a very powerful instrument for measuring California against world-class standards. Perhaps in hindsight, if there was more public introduction of it and more prudent administration, it could have survived. There probably were better ways of launching it.