Social and Ethical Responsibilities in AEA

Brief Biography

Michael R. McCormick is proud to serve as the Superintendent for the Val Verde Unified School District. Most recently, he served for six years as the Assistant Superintendent for Education Services. He has been an administrator for 19 years and an educator for 25 years. Michael “is a dedicated educator who truly cares about children…he is always working on ways to improve the community and motivate students.” Mr. McCormick was named Administrator of the Year by the Riverside County Office of Education in 2012 and by the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) in 2015.

Under his leadership, VVUSD has been recognized by Education Trust West as, “tops among California districts Closing the Achievement Gap.”, named College Board AP District of the Year in 2012 and was featured in the National Center on Educational Outcomes publication Moving your Numbers.

Mr. McCormick participated as a member of the Riverside County contingent of educators summoned by the White House to a meeting at the U.S. Department of Education. The work completed there was highlighted in President Obama’s speech to attendees at the White House College Opportunity Day of Action held on December 4, 2014, in the White House Executive Office of the President “College Opportunity Commitment Report”, and in a press release from the White House Press Secretary.

Mr. McCormick traveled to China as part of the College Board 2014 Chinese Bridge Delegation. Michael was selected as ambassador, speaking for the group, exchanged ceremonial gifts on behalf of the delegation, met with Ministers of Education, and gave television and print interviews for local Chinese media.

Michael is a well-respected and sought after speaker, giving presentations both statewide and nationally. He has presented original research the last three years at the California Educational Research Association (CERA) conference. He has also presented for the College Board, the California School Boards Association, the National School Boards Association, the Curriculum & Instruction Steering Committee of the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association (CISC) and the California Educational Technology Professionals Association.  Mr. McCormick is proud to have delivered multiple keynote presentations at Google Symposiums focusing on the successful implementation of instructional technology in a K-12 school district.

Michael is passionate about student assessment and educational technology.  His educational career has focused on serving students by creating systems that ensure access and opportunity to high-quality curriculum, instruction, and assessment.  As a matter of fact, his guiding principle is that ALL students are provided an equal opportunity to graduate with the greatest number of post-secondary choices from the widest array of options. 

Social and Ethical Responsibilities in Assessment, Evaluation, and Accountability

The American Evaluation Association (AEA) published a public statement entitled Cultural Competence in Evaluation (2011) to bring awareness to the value of cultural competence in evaluation.  According to the American Evaluation Association, cultural competence is a process of "learning, unlearning, and relearning" (2011, p.3).  Moreover, that cultural competence requires researchers to have a very high degree of self awareness, an awareness of their own cultural assumptions, an awareness of the assumptions of others, and the ability to interact with others in a respectful and genuine manner (American Evaluation Association, 2011).

Valuing the position of the American Evaluation Association, with respect to cultural competence in evaluation, prompted questions about the importance of cultural competence in item construction for student assessments.  I began to wonder about the processes assessment companies use to create assessments that accurately measure student knowledge.  I chose to focus on the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium since they have been contracted to develop statewide summative assessments for all students in grades 3-8 and 11 in the state of California. Thus, I generated the following questions to explore:

1. How does the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium ensure assessment items are designed in a culturally competent way?
2. Are students, as evaluation participants, made aware of their rights and potential risks of participation by taking annual summative assessments to evaluate their academic progress?

Through my research, I discovered that the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium does make every effort to construct assessment items that are culturally competent.  I was very pleased to discover website content, a slide presentation, and a video detailing the processes of creating items that are free from bias, universally accessible, and sensitive.  Based on a review of the information presented in the link above, I was satisfied that the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is creating items that meet the expectation of cultural competence prescribed by the AEA.

Please allow me to share one specific example of cultural competence used by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium in item construction.  There is an emphasis placed on the use of language when creating assessment items.  According to the American Evaluation Association (2011), language is very powerful as it represents the code people use within their culture.  I believe there is a social and ethical responsibility to create assessment items that are free from language bias.  In my professional experience, paying attention to language bias in assessment items ensures, to the greatest extent possible, that student content knowledge is accurately assessed.  On the other hand, assessment items that include language bias, can result in lower student scores because of the student's lack of knowledge of a culturally biased word or phrase.  In this case, the student may know how to solve the problem, but be distracted from the correct answer because of faulty item construction.

The answer to the second question is more alarming.  According the the American Evaluation Association (2011), cultural competence in evaluation includes an ethical obligation to guarantee that all participants understand their rights and potential risks of participating in the evaluation.  With respect to statewide public school assessment, I would posit that students are not made fully aware of their rights.  More importantly, are students made aware of the risks of participation?  In fact, state law requires every 3-8 and 11th grade student to participate.  It should be noted that there is a waiver process that is also part of California law that allows parents to remove their child/ren from participation in the statewide assessment program.

The second question certainly causes me to think about social and ethical responsibility of ensuring third grade students understand the potential risks of participating in statewide summative assessments on an annual basis to measure their academic growth.  It is no secret that assessment results will be used to judge their academic performance.  Moreover, those results may be used to determine class placement and program placement.

Cultural competence among assessment developers is essential.  The expectation from stakeholders is that student assessment results are valid.  Validity is critical because of the way that educators use student results.  In my opinion, public school educators and assessment developers must pay attention to cultural competence.  According the the American Evaluation Association (2011), evaluators are challenged to increase their self-awareness and seek opportunities to improve systems with respect to awareness and sensitivity to all cultures.  While there is evidence to suggest we have addressed cultural competence in the development of assessment items, I believe public school educators must pay greater attention to ensuring students understand the "risks" of participating in statewide summative assessments.

References

American Evaluation Association. (2011). Public statement on cultural competence in evaluation. Fairhaven, MA: Author.  Retrieved from http://www.eval.org

Smarterbalanced.org,. (2015). Item writing and review. Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Retrieved 6 December 2015, from http://www.smarterbalanced.org/smarter-balanced-assessments/item-writing-and-review/