DEMANDS, CAUTIONS, AND SUGGESTIONS FOR SETTING STANDARDS

Abstract

Seven out of eight respondents is a hefty majority by almost any standard. It is the sort of majority that might be expected on questions about apple pie or motherhood. Surely it is too rarefied a figure to be associated with a question about the use of tests. Nonetheless, a recently completed survey of adults in the state of Illinois reported just this level of support when respondents were asked about requiring to pass a test for promotion to the next grade. A research team at the University of Illinois surveyed nearly 10,000 adults throughout Illinois (Illinois, 1978). Among questions dealing with a wide range of topics, respondents were asked: Should schools require to pass a test of basic skills before going on to the next grade? (p. 11). Eighty-eight percent of those who answered this question said yes and only 12 percent said no. (No opinion was given by five percent of the sample.) One can think of a series of questions that follow from that first one: What does it mean to pass? Who should decide? What kind of test? What basic skills? But while these questions cloud the meaning of the survey results, it is evident that there is broad support for some vague notions involving the use of tests and performance standards. The Illinois survey is only one of many indicators of the current activity and popular interest in minimum-competency testing. Pipho (1978) reported that of March 15, 1978, 33 states had taken some type of action to mandate the setting of minimum competency standards for elementary and secondary students (p. 585). Sixty-five percent of the respondents to the 1976 Gallup poll of the public's attitudes toward the public schools answered yes when asked, Should all high school in the United States be required to pass a standard nationwide examination in order to get a high school diploma? (Gallup, 1976, p. 190). The support of minimum-competency requirements among professional educators has been somewhat more guarded and in some instances antagonistic. The National Education Association's Guidelines and Cautions for Considering Criterion-referenced Testing (1975) caution that 'Minimal competency' or 'mastery' cut-off -points should be viewed with some suspicion (p. 11). There is opposition to the idea of a national testing program in the Department of Health Education and Welfare (see, for example, Califano, 1977). The recent report of the National Academy of Education Committee of Testing and Basic Skills (1978), while acknowledging minimum-competency testing as a potentially positive educational development (p. v), cautioned against misuses and overemphasis. Despite these reservations, substantial support for some uses of minimumcompetency testing may be found among educators, as evidenced by the statement of the National Association of Secondary School Principals: