Maryland has quietly stopped its longstanding practice of allowing teachers to review test booklets up to two weeks before its annual reading and math examinations were given.
State officials said they changed the practice before this year's Maryland School Assessments after questions arose about whether teachers were reviewing the test for content, which would not be an appropriate use of the booklets.
The change, state officials contend, has had no effect on test results and was not made in relation to the testing scandal at George Washington Elementary School in Baltimore that came to light earlier this year. Test scores in reading and math were generally flat this year.
But that teachers had access to the booklets was a surprise to some longtime education observers, who said it created the possibility that teachers could return to their classrooms and teach their students exactly the questions that were on the tests — or "teach to the test."
The change was a good one to make, said Steve Ferrara, a principal research scientist at CTB/McGraw-Hill, an educational testing company.
"When you give teachers the test materials ahead of time, you put them at risk of making a bad decision," he said. Ferrara said teachers might be tempted to act unethically and use the information to prepare students for the test. "Teaching the content of the test item is inappropriate practice. It is not helping kids understand content," he said.
Leslie Wilson, the education department's head of assessments, said the change was made after she received several phone calls from teachers who had looked over the booklets and were asking questions. She didn't believe the teachers were cheating but said it raised a red flag as to whether the booklets were being used appropriately.
"Recently we started to get calls from teachers," she said. "They were doing more with it than intended."
During the advance screening, a teacher was only allowed to look at a booklet in the presence of the school's testing coordinator and wasn't allowed to take a pencil or piece of paper into the room. The early look was allowed so that teachers could read the directions, and see where the breaks were for each section and how many questions were in each section. But teachers were asking whether a test question was correctly worded or whether there were two correct answers.
"We had two or three of the calls. They aren't supposed to be reading items," Wilson said.
John R. Woolums, director of government relations at the Maryland Association of Boards of Education, said when education observers heard Wilson explain the change at the state board meeting last week, they were startled.
"The revelation that teachers had had access to the test booklet two weeks in advance came as a surprise to those in the room, including representatives of local boards of education," he said.
Ferrara, who headed testing in Maryland for more than a decade before he left in 1997, said the practice started under his watch during a time when Maryland gave the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program, or MSPAP. That test required students to work in groups and to do science experiments together, so teachers needed time to look over the test questions and set up the experiments, he said. Ferrara said he encouraged teachers not only to look at the booklets in advance, but to practice so that the testing would go smoothly.
But all that changed in 2003 after No Child Left Behind required Maryland to move to a much simpler state test called the Maryland School Assessment, which emphasized individual student data.
Wilson said the change in the advance screening was not made because of a security issue and added that teachers had to sign a form saying they would not share the information or use it for instruction.
She said she believes it would have been difficult for teachers to memorize the questions. She added that not all teachers are assigned to be a proctor in the class they teach and that the state gives out several versions of the test each year, so that two students who are sitting next to each other in a classroom may not be taking the same version.
But others seem to think it is just better not to share the test before the tests are administered.
Neither Virginia nor Pennsylvania has allowed such a practice. And in Maryland, at least one county, Baltimore County, said it did not allow teachers to have access to the test beforehand.
"Teachers have not had access to the test materials for the past three test administrations. This is to maintain the integrity of the test," said Charles Herndon, a spokesman for the county.
Baltimore City and Howard County said they continued to allow the practice until the state changed the rule.