Maine's use of SAT is expected to pass federal test

If you link to this article, there's interesting commentary on this by Maine locals. -Angela
Monday, July 24, 2006
Maine's use of SAT is expected to pass federal test

By BETH QUIMBY, Portland Press Herald Writer

With a deadline looming, Maine Department of Education officials say they are confident the federal government will raise the failing grades it gave the state for using the SAT to test high school student achievement.

State officials have until July 31 to demonstrate that the SAT adequately measures whether Maine high school students have mastered the Maine Learning Results, the state's learning standards.

If not, the department stands to lose up to $500,000 in annual federal administration funds that would be sent directly to Maine's school districts instead.

State Education Commissioner Susan Gendron doesn't expect that to happen. "I feel we are in very good shape," she said.

For the past month, education officials have been compiling evidence to prove their case. The process was set in motion when federal officials told Maine, after repeated warnings, it was one of only two states to flunk a federal review of the student performance tests used by all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

The finding put the state out of compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, a sweeping education reform law aimed at holding schools accountable for student performance. Thirty-four assessment systems were cited for inadequacies but received temporary approval. Ten were approved and another four were expected to be approved. Maine and Nebraska flunked.

While the federal department found shortcomings in the achievement tests given to non-English-speaking and special-education students in Maine, it was the SAT that was the major focus of concern.

The federal review determined that the questions on the SAT, a college entrance examination, did not match up with the state's learning standards. It also found that Maine education officials had failed to put the SAT through an independent review to determine whether it would work as a state achievement test.

Federal officials chastised Maine officials for failing to meet basic federal requirements and, in doing so, treating Maine students unfairly.

Maine started administering the SAT to high school juniors for the first time this year instead of the Maine Educational Assessment, a test tailored to Maine's Learning Results and now given to students only in grades three through eight.

Gendron pushed for the change, claiming the SAT would motivate more students to apply to college, a major goal of the department, and free more time for instruction. The SAT is a one-day test. MEAs are administered over several days.

The switch was criticized by some educators, including the Maine Counseling Association and the American Counseling Association, which argued that the SAT was designed to predict college success, not Maine students' mastery of the state's learning standards.

They also said it was unproven that using the SAT would encourage more students to apply to college.

Before the switch occurred, a committee was set up to look at a number of tests, such as the ACT, a competing college entrance test not widely used in New England, before settling on the SAT. It is one of several college entrance examinations managed by the College Board, a nonprofit group of about 4,500 higher education institutions.

Gendron said the ACT was rejected because it did not appear to align as well with Maine's learning standards. Moreover, Maine's public universities use the SAT for admission and 75 percent of Maine's roughly 71,000 high school students were already taking the SAT annually, compared to fewer than 5 percent who take the ACT.

Maine education officials approached the College Board, which launched its own study to determine whether the SAT would measure Maine's learning standards adequately. The College Board's study concluded that more questions would have to be added to achieve an adequate alignment with the state's learning standards.

Maine officials then signed a $1 million contract with the College Board to administer the test without putting the SAT through an independent review, a move criticized by federal reviewers.

Jacqueline Soychak, who oversees federal programs at Maine's education department, said her department didn't conduct an independent review because No Child Left Behind didn't require such a step.

Michael Sentance, regional representative for the U.S. Department of Education, said an independent review just makes good sense.

"To think that there wouldn't be an independent review is a little bit curious. One would think Maine would want it for its own purposes, rather than take the word of the vendor," Sentance said.

The Maine education department later hired Norman Webb, a researcher with the Wisconsin Center for Education Research and an authority on matching standards to assessment tests, to do an independent study.

His preliminary findings delivered in April showed more than 40 areas in which the SAT did not align with the state's learning standards.

After Maine was threatened with federal sanctions last month, Webb was asked to fast-track his study. Valerie Seaberg, a state education department spokeswoman, said Webb's latest findings determined that Maine would have to add one new question on the reading section of the SAT and at least 11 more questions to the mathematics section.

Seaberg said the education department has not determined how it will add questions but probably would hire a company such as Measured Progress of Dover, N.H., which designs the MEAs, to do the work. The cost has not been determined.

She said the additional questions would be given on the same day as the SAT. The state already was notified that it would have to come up with a science test for high school students, which it probably will administer on the same day as well. Maine probably will use a science test that is being designed by other New England states, Seaberg said.

Meanwhile, Gendron is so confident that the state will satisfy federal officials, she is forging ahead with next month's meeting of state educators, mostly high school teachers, to translate SAT scores into achievement levels that indicate whether a student is failing, meeting or exceeding the state's learning standards.

She has already set next year's SAT administration dates and last week announced a deal with the College Board to provide SAT preparation courses to all Maine high school students.

Gendron also emphasized her confidence in a letter to school administrators she sent out a week ago.

"I want to be very clear that the SAT will be used as our state's grade 11 assessment for the foreseeable future," she wrote.

Once Maine provides the additional evidence, the federal department will conduct another review to determine whether Maine proved its case.

If Maine fails again, the federal government will start withholding some funds from the state education department until it can satisfy requirements. State officials said they didn't know how long the new review would take.


TESTING GLOSSARY

SAT: A college entrance examination that measures reasoning skills, widely used by higher education institutions to predict a student's likelihood of success in college. More information on Maine's switch to the SAT is available online at www.state.me.us

COLLEGE BOARD: The nonprofit group of about 4,500 colleges and universities that manages the SAT and its other college entrance examinations, such as advanced placement examinations.

MAINE LEARNING RESULTS: A set of standards Maine high school graduates are expected to meet in various subjects, adopted by the Legislature in 1997 and now under revision. More information is available online at www.maine.gov

MAINE EDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT: The name of the achievement test given to all students in grades three through eight to determine student performance of Maine Learning Results. More information is available online at www.state.me.us
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Staff Writer Beth Quimby can be contacted at 791-6363 or at:

bquimby@pressherald.com

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/news/state/060724sat.shtml