20 years later: the immorality of test security, revisited

Grant Wiggins:

The title of this post refers to the title of an article I wrote twenty years ago: The Immorality of Test Security. It is basically immoral to hold people accountable for improved results on tests that are so secure that teachers aren't even allowed, in some cases, to see them. And as more states back off releasing tests and allowing teachers to score them, it seems timely to revisit the argument. (See this and this article on the changes to make the Regents exam no longer teacher scored).

As I have long written, I have no problem with the state doing a once-per-year audit of performance. But what far too many policy-makers and measurement wonks fail to understand is that if the core purpose of the test is to improve performance, not just audit it, then most test security undercuts the purpose. Look, I get the point of security: you can get at understanding far more easily and efficiently (hence, cheaply) if the student does not know the specific question that is coming; I'm ok with that. But complete test security after the fact serves only the test-makers: they get to re-use items (and do so with little oversight), and they make the entire test more of a superficial dipstick, using proxies for real work, than a genuine test of transparent and worthy performance.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 5, 2013 12:00 AM
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