New York State Required PEP and PET vs Rush-Henrietta Central School District Required SAT

Abstract

With the growth of measurement-driven instruction built around abundant testing, a debate exists as to whether the growth of testing is necessarily best for the student. This study compares the required New York State Pupil Evaluation Program (PEP) and Program Evaluation Test (PET) to the Rush-Henrietta Central School District required Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) to determine if there is a statistically significant correlation between the PEP and SAT, as well as the PET and SAT. If the result is a positive, the author will recommend terminating one for the tests so that more time and money can be spent on instruction and student-teacher interaction. The scores of tests taken by all students of the Rush-Henrietta Central School District in the 1989-90 school year were subjected to statistical analysis. The author concludes that pairwise comparisons of the tests correlated significantly, and therefore the tests were extremely similar. It is argued one of the tests be dropped, since the current model was not only redundant but also costly and detrimental to the learning process. The author recommends use of the SAT since it provides more detailed results with which teachers can identify students’ strengths and weaknesses in specific skill areas.