VDOE's Dishonesty about Skewing Assessment Scores (Part II)
Cut Scores, a Great Way to Skew Test Results
Assessment policy makers want us to believe that standardized testing is a fair, rational and effective way to determine how well students are learning. In spite of our almost exclusive reliance on standardized tests for today’s students, Fairtests.org points out the tests are neither fair nor reliable, at least in part because the policy makers themselves are so highly politicized.
There are a myriad of ways pass rates and the relative difficulty of assessments can be manipulated. Some ways include:
Instructional alignment. The match between what is taught and what is tested, can be made less predictable - Each time standards are realigned, teachers need time and information to shift their instruction to match the changes in the tests and standards.
Test question difficulty can be modified. For example when Common Core was introduced, the standard expectations for entering kindergartners was substantially altered.
Subjectivity. The subjective approach of the test creator can require that loaded terms be used or removed. The current drive to eliminate racial or gender relevant details is an example of how test subjectivity can be manipulated. Also the change to asking phonics-related rather than comprehension-related questions can influence results.
Length of test can be altered. The increase or decrease of a few number of questions can drastically alter the pass rates for any given test.
Testing Accommodations. Accommodations such as audio, or visual enhancement, whether the test is timed or untimed, and native language delivery affects outcomes.
Testing conditions can vary with the resources of the school. Basic conditions such as lighting, heating, cooling, space between students, and noise or movement interruptions are relevant and frequently flawed in less affluent communities.
Technology access can be enhanced or impaired. A slow or spotty internet and new technology enhancements introduced but not previewed can change the testing results.
Altering cut scores. And finally, the easiest, most direct and predictable way of lowering or raising test scores is to alter cut scores. (How many correct questions constitutes a pass)
In other words, you can design assessments for a specific outcome.
What’s about to Happen to Virginia Students?
The Youngkin-Guidera Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) has used most of these techniques at various points across their tenure to alter the potential state test scores, but none of the prior changes and manipulations will come near this final accumulated blow they plan to deliver to Virginia’s children in the form of the new Accountability Support Framework and their proposed changes to cut scores.
When the Virginia Board of Education (VBOE) unveiled its plan for school accountability and accreditation in July of 2024, parents and educators alike were stunned to hear they projected as much as 70% of our schools would be “off track” or failing. At the time it seemed unbelievable that would ever be the case. We did not realize a 70% failure rate was indeed what they planned to build into the design.
In order to quell the outcry, the VDOE ratcheted down the percentages projected across the summer of 2024, but the support documents just revealed at the Feb 26-27, 2025 Board of Education meetings restores the 70% failure rate as a goal.
The Department will be setting new cut scores between now and July 2025.
This is particularly political because Aimee Guidera has campaigned for the duration of her term that Virginia schools and students were failing and that the state and local governments were lying to parents about it. She and the governor have resurrected those accusations yet again.
Every policy choice of Secretary Guidera’s and the governor's administration has been conceived to prove that failure. Every policy from changing standards without appropriate input to implementing without appropriate guidance documents has been geared to and guided by an attempt to prove failure which would pave the way for full voucher-charter-privatization reform.
Since Socrates was tried and executed for teaching in 399 BCE, school assessment practices have been political, but never more so than now. At what point should using tests as political weapons and the politicization of school policy be considered corruption bordering on the criminal? How much damage should be allowed before the people of Virginia stop this deliberate sabotage?
Please let the VBOE hear from you about their plans here.
See Part I VDOE's Dishonesty about Virginia's Math Scores to understand how changing cut scores will return to the department’s projected massive failure rates.
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