‘Test Prep’ Moving Into Primary Grades

While her daughter practices spelling on a computer inside the Score! learning center in Yorba Linda, Louise Price waits anxiously on a bench out front.

On April 13, 11-year-old Megan will begin taking the Stanford 9 test in her Anaheim Hills school, and although she is bright, a big test causes her to freeze up.

“I get kind of stressed, and then even when I know the answer it’s like I think I don’t,” Megan said.

As California schools launch their third year of Stanford 9 testing, the anxiety is rising along with the stakes. More is riding on this year’s scores than ever before--for schools, teachers and students.

“The data are being used in the most important high-stakes educational environment that the state has ever established,” said Doug Stone, a spokesman for the California Department of Education. “This [Stanford 9] is the basis for the state’s accountability program.”

Moving to cash in on all the shaky nerves are test preparation companies large and small. Long a staple of upper-grade students readying themselves for college entrance exams such as the SAT, “test prep” is moving down into the ranks of elementary-age pupils.

“There are big bucks in test prep,” said Joel Jordan, a Los Angeles high school teacher. “It’s a bonanza for private industry.”

State law prohibits schools from using specific Stanford 9 materials in classrooms to prepare students for the standardized test, which measures students’ performance against a national sample and is being given this year to about 4.3 million students in grades 2 through 11. One fear is that teachers would sacrifice too much time drilling students on test questions at the expense of regular lessons geared to the state’s rigorous new content standards.

But that doesn’t stop parents from snapping up $20 copies of “How to Prepare for the SAT9,” a Stanford 9 test preparation guide for grades 2 through 6 published by Carney Educational Services in Glendale. Since October, the company has grossed about $200,000 on the volumes; it plans to come out next year with versions for seventh and eighth grades.

Parents also enlist outside tutors to help buoy their children’s results. Score! Educational Centers, part of Kaplan Inc., charges $104 to $129 a month, depending on location, along with a one-time $100 registration fee. The centers distribute a free parents’ guide to the Stanford 9 that is produced by Kaplan.

But the centers attempt to temper parents’ expectations.

“We tell parents we have to build those skills as methodically as possible,” said Marny Rush, regional director.

“We’ve had a number of parents call with requests for tutors to help kids pass the test,” said Mary Wiest, owner of Keys to Learning, a South Bay service. Her tutors charge $40 an hour to help children bone up on basic skills and build confidence, which she views as a key to success.

“Some of them are very, very intelligent kids that just don’t test well,” Wiest added. “It’s very sad.”

Online services are leaping into the fray, too. A handful of California schools, including three in Riverside, have signed up for EduTest.com. The Web-based service offers practice tests to help bolster students’ knowledge of state content standards. A school’s yearly subscription for grades 2 through 8 runs $2,495.

Inappropriate Use of Test, Firm Says

The heightened interest in test preparation reflects California’s new school accountability program, which for now depends solely on Stanford 9 scores. Scores from spring 1999 established a baseline for schools; this year’s scores will determine whether schools are progressing as hoped.

They also will determine which schools and teachers qualify for cash rewards or need help from the state to improve. In some districts, teachers’ merit pay and evaluations could hinge on how well their students fare on the test.

For many students, including those in the Pasadena and Los Angeles unified school districts, performance on the standardized skills test will help decide whether they advance to the next grade. Gov. Gray Davis is also waving $1,000 scholarships in front of high school students who score in the top brackets.

Many educators and testing experts say such high-stakes uses for individual teachers and students are inappropriate if other factors are not weighed as well.

The test developer, Harcourt Educational Measurement of San Antonio, has said as much to the state Board of Education.

“They should never make high-stakes individual decisions with a single measure of any kind,” said Robert Rayborn, who directs Harcourt’s Stanford 9 program in California.

California’s testing, which began at some schools in mid-March and will run through mid-May, is proceeding against a national backdrop of discontent over rigorous academic standards and the make-or-break assessments that are increasingly used to measure how well they are being taught.

Small-scale rumblings of rebellion have cropped up in Marin County, Chicago, suburban Detroit, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Texas and Ohio. Protests, legal challenges and boycotts are being led by parents, civil rights activists, educators and students, who see classes being turned into mind-numbing drill sessions designed solely to boost test scores.

Eugene E. Garcia, dean of education at UC Berkeley, is encouraging immigrant parents statewide to request that their children who are still learning English be excused from Stanford 9 testing. If children do not yet know enough English to understand the test, Garcia said, it makes no sense to use scores to make key decisions about them or their schools.

“If you want to assess kids, you’ve got to give them a fair chance,” Garcia said.

It is too early in the testing cycle to know how Garcia’s campaign will shape up.

Opting Out of Exam

Many schools report having received fewer waiver requests this year than last. At Pajaro Valley Unified School District in Watsonville, where 48% of students lack fluency in English, Supt. John Casey said principals have persuaded most parents to let their children be tested so that the district can get a better handle on students’ learning needs.

But in East Los Angeles, Eastman Avenue Elementary School reports that “quite a few” of its 1,500 students have opted out. “The test is pretty tough,” said Fernando Ledezma, a bilingual teacher at the school. “We don’t want our kids suffering.”

The state, meantime, is pushing schools to test as many students as possible. Although a final decision has yet to be made, the state is leaning toward requiring schools to test at least 95% of students if schools want to be eligible for any rewards based on improvement.

Given the momentum of education reform nationwide, many test watchers doubt that the nascent backlash will build enough to derail high-stakes assessments.

“There are protests of various kinds around the country,” said Lorraine McDonnell, a political science professor at UC Santa Barbara, “but there is also the resolve of policymakers to stay the course.”

Indeed, despite widespread concerns, the accountability movement is steaming ahead in California. In January, the state published its first Academic Performance Index, a statewide ranking of public schools, based on Stanford 9 test scores from last spring. Eighty-eight percent of 6,700 schools statewide failed to meet a statewide target of 800 on a scale of 200 to 1,000.

Other measurements--such as graduation and dropout rates and results on a proposed high school exit exam--are expected to be phased in over the next several years.

This year’s Stanford 9 scores, to be released to the public in mid-July, will be used to determine whether schools met their growth targets for this year. Those that do stand to rake in rewards of as much as $150 per student.

For parents with a test-shy child in the house, school accountability seems a remote concern.

Louise Price said Score! tutoring has helped Megan.

“She’s doing much better and has more confidence,” Price said. Still, “I think it’s a lot of pressure on a kid to perform well on this one test.”