The following article was selected from the Internet Edition of the Chicago Tribune. To visit the site, point your browser to http://chicagotribune.com/. ----------- Chicago Tribune Article Forwarding---------------- Article forwarded by: Michael Lach Return e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Article URL: http://chicagotribune.com/news/metro/chicago/article/0,2669,ART-50002,FF.html ---Forwarded article---------------- Test-prep pressure hits grade schools By Karen Brandon With 210 pages of practice exams and advice, the $12 workbook resembles the guides for students taking standardized tests for admission to college or graduate school. "Higher Score Guaranteed," the cover says. "Or your money back." But the students boning up for the test with this manual aren't applying to distinguished universities. They are trying to get to the 4th grade. Students' promotion to the next grade, their entrance into elite educational tracks, the careers of educators and the reputations and budgets of schools increasingly hinge on standardized tests. When he took office last month, President Bush said his first order of business would be education reform. Bush said results would be measured "by testing every child every year," a point echoed by Gov. George Ryan in his State of the State address. New materials, tailor-made for nearly every test in every state at every grade level, are surfacing in traditional guidebooks, at tutoring centers and through Internet-based services. Though the multibillion-dollar industry has long sold test-preparation materials and services to schools, it is now trying to keep pace with the tremendous growth in tests given to elementary and secondary school students, and with the techniques made possible through technological advances. The industry increasingly is targeting parents directly in its drive to extend its reach to a younger clientele. There is little agreement among educators about what is appropriate preparation for standardized tests. The new materials also raise basic questions: Are the children who improve their performance simply learning more about how to take tests? And are students whose parents or schools don't buy detailed test-preparation services at a disadvantage? Publishers say they provide a needed service that helps students learn more, teaches them to do their best and helps families and educators cope with mounting fear and pressure. Detractors say such materials prey on parents' and educators' anxieties and do not improve education. California provides one of the most vivid examples of the test-preparation debate. The workbook to prepare California 3rd graders for the state's standardized test is among the most detailed of a new genre of guides for elementary students, sold by Kaplan Publishing, a leader in the test-preparation industry. It is so detailed that it likely exceeds what the state allows in its classrooms. Though California will distribute nearly $700 million to schools this year based exclusively on the results of one standardized test, the state's policy bars educators from using "any test-preparation materials or strategies developed for a specific test." In Kaplan's view, California's ban on this kind of test-preparation highlights a gap Kaplan's materials fill. "While the motivation for this law may be to leave more classroom time for teaching important material and concepts, it has the effect of putting much of the responsibility for preparing for the tests on children and families. Therefore, easy-to-use, clear and concise workbooks such as Kaplan's are essential," a company news release says. Guidebooks are only a minor part of the expansion of the $105 billion for-profit education business, said Peter Stokes, executive vice president of Eduventures.com, a Boston-based education research firm. Most of the growth has been in online tutoring aimed at schools and families. For instance, SmarterKids.com, an electronic educational store for children from birth to age 12, features a test-preparation center where parents can enter their child's test results. SmartPicks, the site's trademarked search engine, looks for "specific skill-building products for your child." Kaplan says it is fostering a love of learning among the kindergarten through 10th-grade students whose parents buy into its educational services. But the names—Score! for the centers and eSCORE.com for the Web site—make its marketing strategy clear. During the 1999-2000 school year, The Princeton Review, another leading test-preparation business, unveiled Homeroom.com. The program was initially tested in 25 Texas schools in grades 4 through 7. In November, the company announced results from five Houston schools, indicating that students who used the program showed greater improvement in math than students who did not. In the most extreme case, 6th graders who used the program showed a 4.5 percent improvement from the previous year, compared with a 1.6 percent decline in scores among students who did not. The program has been sold to 130 schools, including three in the Chicago area, in almost a dozen states for an annual subscription fee of $4 to $7 per student per year, the company said. The Princeton Review declined to identify the schools. A company spokesman, who said he contacted the Chicago area schools, said school officials declined to be interviewed because it is "too preliminary" to discuss any results. This fall, the company plans to expand by offering subscriptions directly to parents and students. Students using Homeroom.com take online sample tests that mimic standardized exams. They see their results immediately, and the program lets teachers, parents and students know which areas need improvement. "We try to format and present the question as close to the form that will appear on the test as possible," said Stephen Kutno, vice president of educational policy and strategy for Homeroom.com. "[This] obviously is taking us into lower grades," he said, "but it is consistent with our view that test takers who are facing dire consequences really require an advocate, and we're that advocate." Bush's proposal for yearly tests would mean most states would greatly expand testing, a survey by Education Week found. Nearly half of the states require or are about to require students to pass a test to get a high school diploma, and a handful of states are beginning to require children to pass tests for promotion to certain grades, the survey found. Education Week concluded that the increased emphasis on testing has taken a toll. "State tests are overshadowing the standards they were designed to measure and could be encouraging undesirable practices in schools," it said. Marc Bernstein, president of Kaplan K12 Learning Services, said the proliferation of high-stakes tests led the company to address the market in a way that is "very similar to the SAT preparation." Ideally, Bernstein said, teachers would tailor the tests they give throughout the year to the style of the standardized tests children face in the spring. That is far better, he said, than "stopping your teaching four to six weeks before the test date and doing nothing but drill and practice, which is what a lot of schools do." The skills students are learning with the company's tools are practical ones that apply to situations beyond the test, he said. "When you're facing a multiple choice question, how do you eliminate some of the options that are given to you? To me, that's a lifetime skill in terms of the choices we make in our daily lives," he said. But Robert Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, a Cambridge, Mass.-based organization that advocates testing reforms, disagreed. "These are short-term steroids to boost your testing power," he said. "People will do whatever they can to boost their scores by hook or by crook." School districts pay for test-preparation materials at the expense of other items, he noted. Schaeffer expects the new menu of services will exacerbate the gap in performance of African-Americans and Hispanics, who tend to score lower than middle-class whites. Many parents and students welcome any assistance they can get. For instance, a New York parent gave five stars to the Kaplan guidebook for the state's 4th-grade test in a review on Amazon.com. "This book really took all the mystery out of the New York State 4th grade testing. ... I ordered more copies to distribute in my children's school." But a reviewer of a California guide said, "Nothing in this guide will improve the quality of the education the child receives." The standards of what is acceptable in test preparation have changed in recent years, said Walter Haney, education professor at the Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation and Educational Policy at Boston College. "It used to be that most people would say that prepping kids on parallel forms of a test is inappropriate," Haney said. "But in fact it has come to be very widely accepted, so it's hard to condemn it. Many of the test companies themselves sell old versions of the tests." He characterized the advent of test-preparation books for the parents of young children as "an unfortunate reflection of the overemphasis on standardized testing." Drew Johnson, who wrote most of the Kaplan guidebooks with his wife, Cynthia, sees little harm in preparing for the tests. "If you take the practice test, you're going to be familiar with the format," he said, "as opposed to just going in with your brain and a pencil and a willingness to do well. "The books don't cause the anxiety," he said. "The anxiety is already there. What is an 8-year-old worried about? He's worried that if he doesn't pass this test, he might be held back or take summer school." -- This is the CPS Science Teacher List. To unsubscribe, send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For more information: <http://home.sprintmail.com/~mikelach/subscribe.html>. To search the archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/science%40lists.csi.cps.k12.il.us/>
