Education Department considers test change MEA exams not meaningful for many

BANGOR – Hoping that high school juniors will take their annual statewide test more seriously and thus perform better, the Maine Department of Education is considering replacing the current assessment with a college entrance exam.

Many 11th-graders don’t do as well as they could on the Maine Educational Assessment because they aren’t motivated, according to Deputy Commissioner Patrick Phillips.

By replacing the MEA with the Scholastic Aptitude Test or a similar college entrance exam, 11th-graders may be more inclined to see the test as being relevant, Phillips said during a recent interview.

The statewide educational assessment, which also is given in the fourth and eighth grades, gauges performance on reading, writing, mathematics and science-technology.

Education officials have pointed out that the MEA is more rigorous than the statewide tests given by many other states, in part because it includes a higher percentage of questions that demand critical thinking and problem solving.

But even taking into account the arduousness of the MEA, “there’s certainly significant room for improvement,” said Brud Maxcy of the Department of Education. According to the most recent data, just under half of 11th-graders met or exceeded the standards in reading, while 24 percent met or exceeded the standards in mathematics, he said. Performance largely has remained unchanged during the past five years, he noted.

“Many people do worry that if the test isn’t being taken seriously by students, how can we use it to really accurately reflect how good a job schools are doing,” Phillips said.

Getting a true picture of a school’s educational program is more important than ever because of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which holds schools and states accountable for students’ progress toward meeting state academic standards. A school whose performance isn’t deemed up to speed is subject to an escalating scale of sanctions.

“If the results of a test are going to be used to make a decision about schools … we want to make sure the results are accurate and that they truly reflect the status of our educational program and not the fact that significant numbers of students didn’t try their best,” Phillips said.

Seventy percent of Maine students already participate in the SAT as juniors and seniors, state officials said. “They take the test with some really clear motivation because they’re using it [as part of] the college entrance process,” he said.

Further review is needed to determine the correlation between MEA and SAT scores, Maxcy said. The two tests are “quite different and the reporting is different,” he said. Discussions also will focus on what SAT scores in each subject area would be considered as having met the standards in the Maine Learning Results, he said.

Replacing the state test with a college entrance exam isn’t new. Michigan and Illinois have been doing it for several years, according to Phillips.

While the idea has been met in Maine with some degree of enthusiasm, a number of issues need to be explored, he said.

For example, some students prepare for the SAT by getting outside tutoring and thus could have an edge.

“If the SAT were to become a state test for virtually all students, and some are able to access preparation courses outside school, what does that do to the fairness of the test?” Phillips asked.

On the other hand, it “coincides with the state policy direction to get more students prepared for postsecondary education,” he said.

Another plus, said Maxcy, is that, “it’s a test that people know about and have some understanding about.”

Changes likely wouldn’t come about before 2007 since they would require legislative approval, Phillips said.