LING 612 Making Assessment Practices Valid for Indigenous American Students S. Nelson-Barber & E. Trumbull (2007)

When I read this article I was pleasantly surprised to see the similarity between the article's concept and our place-based education philosophy we have right here in Russian Mission, Alaska!! I think like the ultimate purpose of the standardized test goals of the US educational system is to create test questions that typical next door neighbor people can answer. Everyone down states knows that candy don't come to the village from the "post office." Kids here are so cute, when I ask them where did they get their new clothes or their snow racers, they respond, "My dad and my mom got it from the post office." I asked, "oh, does the post office have a store there?" They respond, "no, it come with Jim's truck." Can you imagine the reaction that someone from the test administrator's office would have with that response? I just smile because I know that they they all know that we get most of our stuff from...Walmart. Ha ha.
Having the place-based education here in Russian Mission started when we decided as a whole community with all the entities involved to fix our low level of literacy in our community. We decided as a whole group to get students reading by investing in culturally relevant books and having students learn about their culture in the classroom and making that the focus of the curriculum in the school. With lots of sweat and dedication by the whole group, we are able to raise our reading and writing scores to 60% based on the AYP percentage of how our school is doing. With that score, we have not AYP this year, but I think it is still pretty good, because that is way higher than 20% from the past assessments in reading and writing. By the way, our math score is in that same percentage as well.
I think it is about time that the country is realizing that no matter what the curriculum focuses on and how much time is needed to get students proficient in the basics, we can still get there and have our students proud of who they are and that they know their hertiage and be proud of themselves, instead of having a label that is stamped on their school record that says, "Limited English Proficient." Instead have a stamp that states, "Proud."

LING 612 Who Is Given Tests in What Language by Whom, When, and Where? (2008) G. Solano-Flores

Testing English Language Learners (ELL) is a complex process for validity and reliability purposes. There are factors such as the diverse ELL population that deals with various levels of bilingual definitions and the dialect that the community uses are a couple of factors that makes learning English a HUGE process to overcome, much less pass a standardized test that the USA expects for funding and having its doors open to communities.
There is a one size fits all ELL test that is administered to all students that are learning English with accommodations that are given from supposedly speakers of the school's dialect, but may or may not understand the question accurately to do justice to the interpretation that the student needs in order to be comfortable with the questions asked. Also the procedures used to create a valid test for ELL students is time consuming and the actual measure to test the questions is vast and gives too many variables to focus on questions to help students to understand the test questions enough to pass the English test. Again the linguistic barrier that is present for second language learners is something that needs to be studied and possibly adapted for ELL students to understand the questions without having to figure out the language context as well.
I read about the G Theory created by Cronbach, Gleser, Nanda, & Rajaratnam (1972) and would really like to understand how it factors into pinpointing how academic achievement can be achieved?

Chapter 5, Validity: testing the test. McNamara (2000)

Data is used as evidence of learning. It is all a matter of judgment and how the test is used and if used for the test's purpose. Test validation is when investigation undergoes to see if the procedures were achieved by the judgment concluded, so much like a trial and presenting information to a jury in court. The book gave an example of OJ Simpson's trial. I think the format that you use to see if a test's criteria is met is as important as putting or keeping an individual from jail time.
The validity of assessment procedures and what the test measures should be revisited and revised to meet the needs of your students in any testing situation, whether it be in your classroom or a high stakes test like the SBA or the HSGQE test that the State of Alaska uses to judge schools to see if they are making adequately yearly progress.
The test developer has a huge role in determining the passing and qualifying of the test before giving it to others to use to measure achievement or ability levels.
Test validation should go through an analysis to see if the data it judges is valid and is used for the purposes of the test. Of course, the level that the test is validated will all be based on funding and whether there is money for the test developer to revise the test to make it as valid as possible. This of course takes time and lots of data gathering and willingness to follow through on testing materials.
I see the point of making sure that students are taking valid tests in language. It makes me think of the purposes that tests are used for and how some might be misused to "validate" data.

Ch 2 Designing Authentic Assessment & The Language Assessment Process: A Multiplism Perspective

When designing the authentic assessment for your classroom you have to have collaboration between you, your colleagues, students and parents, and your district. I personally do not think that I am in a position to create authentic assessment that tests for the grade level expectations that we are following in our district and the State of Alaska. Assessment tools need to address the purpose of the assessment, stating the language knowledge being tested, choosing the testing procedures, determining the quality of the of the procedures, interpreting and reporting the results, all the while making sure that your authentic assessment is reliable and valid.
I realize that I have no formal training for creating a test that will show communicative competence and having a constructivist approach which do not test for competition for good grades. The researcher, Kohn (1994) noted that people who are promised extrinsic rewards for an activity "tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to obtain the reward." This quote has red flags for me for the SBA/HSGQE/IPT testing protocal that the NCLB Act (2001) has as a assessment tool.
I also have problems with the idea of the rubric to grade state tests like writing. It makes me wonder how much formal training the test graders had to become non-biased testers and are completely fair on each and every test that goes to them from the statewide SBA/HSGQE tests that are graded in the state level to make or break AYP.
For me, authentic assessment is a long and careful process that a teacher cannot jump into and decide that they want to create tools that show student growth without including the school, district and parents and students. I am having a hard time believing that I can create authentic assessment that will be included in my assessment portfolio that will be valid and reliable to me and my work setting and district.