HOUSE JOINT MEMORIAL 30

51st legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2013

INTRODUCED BY

Mimi Stewart

A JOINT MEMORIAL

REQUESTING THE LEGISLATIVE EDUCATION STUDY COMMITTEE TO CONVENE A WORK GROUP TO STUDY THE USE OF STANDARDIZED TEST SCORES FOR PURPOSES OTHER THAN THOSE FOR WHICH THE TEST WAS DESIGNED.

     WHEREAS, standards-based assessments are designed to measure the proficiency of individual students against content standards in academic disciplines; and

     WHEREAS, the use of standards-based assessment scores is intended to provide information to teachers regarding how their students are performing on identified standards; and

     WHEREAS, individual student assessment scores are also useful in helping parents understand the academic proficiency of their children; and

     WHEREAS, recently, New Mexico has begun implementing a school grading system and a teacher evaluation system that rely on an approach to measure growth using value-added modeling; and

     WHEREAS, value-added modeling uses student test scores over several years to predict where the student will score in a subsequent year and then attributes those gains to the current teacher; and

     WHEREAS, a number of factors have been found to have strong influences on student learning gains, aside from the teachers to whom their scores would be attached, and those factors include such things as previous teachers, tutors, school conditions, quality of curriculum materials, specialists, class size and schedules; and

     WHEREAS, there is broad agreement among statisticians, psychometricians and economists that student test scores alone are not reliable and valid indicators of teacher effectiveness and should not be used in high-stakes personnel decisions; and

     WHEREAS, analyses of value-added modeling results have led researchers to doubt whether the methodology can accurately identify more or less effective teachers; and

     WHEREAS, value-added modeling estimates have proven to be unstable across statistical models, years and classes that teachers teach; and

     WHEREAS, the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers leads to an excessive focus on reading and mathematics and the subsequent narrowing and over-simplification of the curriculum; and

     WHEREAS, one possible unintended consequence of tying teacher evaluations and sanctions to test score results may be to discourage teachers from working in public schools with the neediest students; and

     WHEREAS, when an assessment instrument, such as the standards-based assessment, is used for a purpose other than that for which it was designed, for example for measuring teacher effectiveness, the results are often invalid;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the legislative education study committee be requested to convene a work group to study the validity of using standards-based assessments for other purposes, principally teacher and school administrator effectiveness and school grading; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the work group report to the legislative education study committee by October 1, 2013; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this memorial be transmitted to the legislative education study committee.

- 3 -