Post by title1parent on Jul 25, 2011 17:30:04 GMT -5
State cuts essay exam to save cash, leaving students with headaches
By Jenette Sturges
jsturges@stmedianetwork.com
Last Modified: Jul 24, 2011 08:47PM
Number 2 pencils are going to get a bit of a break next year.
That’s because students will no longer be required to take the writing component of the Prairie State Achievement Exam, the two-day battery of standardized tests administered to Illinois’ high school juniors each spring. Springfield legislators cut funding for the writing component when it passed the budget in May, saving the state $2.4 million.
But for students headed to college, the change in state-funded testing could mean more time, money and brainpower spent on test-taking for college applications. And though school administrators said they won’t change their curricula because of the test’s elimination, they are losing a measurement of how students are progressing.
The two-day Prairie State battery includes Illinois State Board of Education tests in math, reading and science, but it’s the first day, when students take the ACT Plus Writing test, that college-bound students and their parents really care about because those are the scores often sent to college admissions offices.
“They take the Prairie State and see how they do on that, and if they do well, they say ‘Oh wonderful, I’ll send those scores in,’” said Carla Johnson, executive director of teaching and learning for Oswego schools. “And we have a lot of high achieving students who want to go to selective schools who will never be satisfied with their scores and take it again and again.”
The ACT Plus Writing exam they’ll send to colleges includes multiple choice tests in English, math, reading and science reasoning, plus an essay response. It’s this essay, which is read by live test graders and thus costs more to administer, that the state budget process has eliminated.
School administrators think that means students with their eyes set on some of the state’s best schools will likely have to take the entire ACT, plus the 30-minute essay section, a second time for about $50.
“If they wanted to get the writing component, we think it would have to be done in a separate administration,” said Erika Schlichter, director of educational services for grades 6-12 grades in the Kaneland School District. “But we’ve gotten no specific communications from the state on specific logistics.”
Both Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign require the writing portion of the test, and two dozen other colleges, including NIU, ISU and UIC, recommend it for admission.
But while it’s a stressful annoyance for high school juniors who will have to take the test a second time, for school administrators in the Fox Valley, the elimination of the writing test means losing another metric by which to measure students’ progress.
“It’s really regrettable that they needed to do that for funding purposes because that was just a great benchmark indicator for us,” said Schlichter. “But we’re going to be maintaining our curriculum efforts and to continue assessing writing internally here.”
Federal law doesn’t require or fund writing tests, and Illinois already cut writing from the battery of tests for elementary and middle school students last year.
Patrick Nolten, director of assessment, research and evaluation for the Indian Prairie School District, isn’t alarmed. He said kids will still learn how to write, and in Indian Prairie, their abilities with the written word are fostered and tested continuously.
“It doesn’t just begin at 11th grade or in high school,” Nolten said. “We’ve really attempted ... to focus on building in district-wide, formative writing, to gauge writing skill over the years.”
Local schools’ academic programming, he said, isn’t affected by the standardized tests. Educators said writing is still an important part of the school day whether it’s tested or not.
“First of all, writing has been and will always be very important and that is district-wide, from elementary to high school,” said Johnson. “So regardless of whatever happens in testing requirements we are always going to place a great priority on writing composition.”
Also, in 2014, Illinois will roll out the standardized tests aligned to the Common Core Standards, a set of education goals to be adopted by all but a handful of states. Administrators still haven’t seen those tests, but according to Schlichter, who has started implementing the Common Core curriculum in Kaneland, the standards include “a huge communications component.”
“So there’s not a need to gear down the writing,” said Johnson. “If anything, there’s a need to gear up.”
Staff writer Susan Frick Carlman contributed to this report.
By Jenette Sturges
jsturges@stmedianetwork.com
Last Modified: Jul 24, 2011 08:47PM
Number 2 pencils are going to get a bit of a break next year.
That’s because students will no longer be required to take the writing component of the Prairie State Achievement Exam, the two-day battery of standardized tests administered to Illinois’ high school juniors each spring. Springfield legislators cut funding for the writing component when it passed the budget in May, saving the state $2.4 million.
But for students headed to college, the change in state-funded testing could mean more time, money and brainpower spent on test-taking for college applications. And though school administrators said they won’t change their curricula because of the test’s elimination, they are losing a measurement of how students are progressing.
The two-day Prairie State battery includes Illinois State Board of Education tests in math, reading and science, but it’s the first day, when students take the ACT Plus Writing test, that college-bound students and their parents really care about because those are the scores often sent to college admissions offices.
“They take the Prairie State and see how they do on that, and if they do well, they say ‘Oh wonderful, I’ll send those scores in,’” said Carla Johnson, executive director of teaching and learning for Oswego schools. “And we have a lot of high achieving students who want to go to selective schools who will never be satisfied with their scores and take it again and again.”
The ACT Plus Writing exam they’ll send to colleges includes multiple choice tests in English, math, reading and science reasoning, plus an essay response. It’s this essay, which is read by live test graders and thus costs more to administer, that the state budget process has eliminated.
School administrators think that means students with their eyes set on some of the state’s best schools will likely have to take the entire ACT, plus the 30-minute essay section, a second time for about $50.
“If they wanted to get the writing component, we think it would have to be done in a separate administration,” said Erika Schlichter, director of educational services for grades 6-12 grades in the Kaneland School District. “But we’ve gotten no specific communications from the state on specific logistics.”
Both Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign require the writing portion of the test, and two dozen other colleges, including NIU, ISU and UIC, recommend it for admission.
But while it’s a stressful annoyance for high school juniors who will have to take the test a second time, for school administrators in the Fox Valley, the elimination of the writing test means losing another metric by which to measure students’ progress.
“It’s really regrettable that they needed to do that for funding purposes because that was just a great benchmark indicator for us,” said Schlichter. “But we’re going to be maintaining our curriculum efforts and to continue assessing writing internally here.”
Federal law doesn’t require or fund writing tests, and Illinois already cut writing from the battery of tests for elementary and middle school students last year.
Patrick Nolten, director of assessment, research and evaluation for the Indian Prairie School District, isn’t alarmed. He said kids will still learn how to write, and in Indian Prairie, their abilities with the written word are fostered and tested continuously.
“It doesn’t just begin at 11th grade or in high school,” Nolten said. “We’ve really attempted ... to focus on building in district-wide, formative writing, to gauge writing skill over the years.”
Local schools’ academic programming, he said, isn’t affected by the standardized tests. Educators said writing is still an important part of the school day whether it’s tested or not.
“First of all, writing has been and will always be very important and that is district-wide, from elementary to high school,” said Johnson. “So regardless of whatever happens in testing requirements we are always going to place a great priority on writing composition.”
Also, in 2014, Illinois will roll out the standardized tests aligned to the Common Core Standards, a set of education goals to be adopted by all but a handful of states. Administrators still haven’t seen those tests, but according to Schlichter, who has started implementing the Common Core curriculum in Kaneland, the standards include “a huge communications component.”
“So there’s not a need to gear down the writing,” said Johnson. “If anything, there’s a need to gear up.”
Staff writer Susan Frick Carlman contributed to this report.