Pop Quiz: What's Worse Than Standardized Tests?

The answer depends on who you ask, of course, but there is growing opinion based on a Virginia state-wide experiment in portfolio assessment that standardized testing may not be the worst way to measure student achievement after all.

The Virginia Grade Level Alternative, as the portfolio assessments are called, offers schools a second way to determine whether students are reaching proficiency that is based not on standardized test scores but rather compilations of student work over the course of a school year.

The idea is one which has received attention in various circles, notably during the campaign trail when then-candidate Obama suggested that portfolio assessments could replace standardized tests at least in part.

In Virginia, the portfolio assessments are available to some special education students and students for whom English is a second language. Instead of asking these students to demonstrate proficiency over reading, writing, math and science using the same tests as other students, teachers document these students' learning throughout the year in a binder of class work -- including worksheets, quizzes and writing samples. Decisions are made at the end of the year whether the binder merits a passing mark.

In theory, the idea sounds reasonable, since it is often unfair to ask students with severe learning disabilities and students who are just learning English to complete the same tests as their peers. It's also true that not every student is able to fully demonstrate their mastery of important concepts through tests, and that multiple measures of assessment are typically more accurate than single measures like standardized tests.

The problem is in practice. In Virginia, the number of students taking the alternate method of portfolio assessment is growing rapidly without much proof yet that a "proficient" score on the portfolios stands for actual mastery of skills. At Lynbrook Elementary School in Fairfax, VA, for instance, the number of portfolio assessments has increased from a handful in 2007 to nearly 100 this year, and passage rates have skyrocketed from 41 percent to 100 percent among students with disabilities, and 69 percent to 97 percent among English language learners.

More troubling is the fact that these students are not participating in portfolio assessments in addition to the standardized tests, they are doing them instead of the traditional measure. The result, sadly, is that the state's astronomically improved passage rates among students taking portfolio assessments may mean, at worst, that the portfolios are rubber stamps given to move any student along regardless of how much they have learned -- or, at best, that we don't know how well schools are teaching these students.

The absence of this independent source of verification -- i.e. if students were doing well on portfolios AND also demonstrating some growth on standardized tests (using read-along and other accommodations where necessary) -- means that there is reason to be skeptical of statistics like the Washington Post's finding that in Fairfax County alone, proficiency rates were higher among students with disabilities than among ordinary students.

To be sure, it would be terrific news if it were actually the case that disabled and ELL students were outperforming their peers. And Virginia deserves applause for spending the extra dollars and effort to develop and train educators to use the portfolio assessments to begin with.

But where the state can so easily institute a small reform -- requiring portfolio students to also take standardized tests and perhaps to use a combination of the two measures to determine whether a student has met proficiency -- but fails to do so, advocates of special education and ELL students are right to be worried that what is really happening is a sleight of hand where schools are giving passing marks to all students without regard for how much they have been taught.

Aaron Tang is the co-director of Our Education, a non-profit organization working to build a national youth movement for quality education. He also teaches 8th grade history in Saint Louis, MO.