The November 4, 2014, Lab seminar was led by Edmond J. Safra Network Fellow, Scott Methe. Scott Methe is an assistant professor in the school psychology and counseling department at UMASS Boston where he researches and develops formative assessment tools to support students who are typically at-risk for school failure, especially as it relates to early mathematics and the development of numeracy. Methe has presented extensively on the local, regional, and national level on using formative curriculum-based assessment and measurement tools to guide student and school improvement. Currently, Methe is conducting applied psychometric research on assessment and scale development, with specific attention to the consequences or treatment validity of testing. More recently, he’s developed optimal methods for making measurement tools more usable, feasible, and efficient. His Lab presentation explored how evidenced-based assessment practices can help prevent the corruption of American public schools.
Methe opened the Lab seminar by discussing his experience administering and developing early literacy tests for K-5 public school students in Massachusetts. He explained that he was initially drawn to early educational development and elementary school education because of a passion for early intervention, and also because of a firmly held belief that literacy and numeracy are essential components to a thriving democracy. Moving on to discuss school failure in public education, he explained that it is important to understand school failure as low achievement in literacy and numeracy, which is primarily measured by standardized assessment tests. He explained that in the context of a perceived widespread failure of public education in America, the primary reaction has been a privatization of test-taking products and services and proliferation of these products, some of which which he contends are dubious. At this point in the presentation Methe began to answer Lab participants’ questions, many of whom were unfamiliar with test development, early educational development, and education policy. In particular, one participant of the Lab questioned if the corruption Methe referred to in the title of his presentation was a loss of public trust in the public school system brought on because of a failure to adopt evidenced-based assessment practices, and instead utilize unproven test-taking products pushed on school districts and administrators by profit-driven entities, such as educational testing companies. Though Methe seemed to agree with aspects of analysis, he explained that since he is in the early stages of his Network fellowship project, he is still investigating sources and remedies for institutional corruption in public schools.
In closing, Methe did argue that many testing products being used in schools are not dynamic and sensitive to small changes in learning development and that this problem places teachers in a precarious situation, caught between enhancing learning and enhancing profit. Further, he explained that enhancement of teacher assessment literacy and expertise in data-based decision-making might provide an avenue for mitigating the conflicts of interest inherent in the use of instructional materials commonly purchased from for-profit corporations.
-- Summary composed by Joseph Hollow