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KATHLEEN WEST: What else did we learn in class about what you can do to not be confused on the test?

SPEAKER: Read the questions before.

TIM PUGMIRE: Students at Oak Grove Middle school in Bloomington recently gathered in a classroom to brush up on their test-taking skills. Tests are serious business in Minnesota schools. These after-school sessions are aimed at eighth graders at risk of failing the state basic skills tests in reading and math. English teacher Kathleen West helped students prepare for the reading test.

KATHLEEN WEST: We do reading comprehension practice all year long. We don't practice for doing a multiple choice test all year long, but the skills that the students need to do well in the test are a big part of the eighth grade curriculum just naturally. As far as official test prep goes, we've been doing practice tests in class, but it only takes up a portion of our class time. It's not our major focus of the year.

TIM PUGMIRE: Standardized statewide tests have been a requirement in Minnesota schools since 1996. The basic skills tests measure minimum competency and are required for graduation. The Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments or MCAs are given in third and fifth grades and measure how well students and schools are meeting state academic standards.

Minnesota's testing load will grow larger in the 2005, 2006 school year. That's when the federal No Child Left Behind Act requires annual reading and math tests in third through eighth grades. States must add science tests by 2007. The tests must be tied to state academic standards.

JIM ANGERMEYER: There are a tremendous number of issues to be resolved. We know very little, other than there will be a test like the MCAs every year between third grade and eighth grade and something in high school.

TIM PUGMIRE: Jim Angermeyer, Director of Research and Evaluation in the Bloomington School District, is still trying to figure out the impact of the new testing requirements. He says, statewide testing is an important tool for comparing schools, measuring students against standards, and checking the effectiveness of a district's curriculum. But Angermeyer says, testing every grade every year is overkill.

JIM ANGERMEYER: If you test a student in third grade or test a school in third grade and they perform at an average level, and you test them in fifth grade and they perform at an average level, one can assume that they would also score at the average level in fourth grade. And you might argue that you don't need to test them again.

TIM PUGMIRE: Minnesota schools won't have a clear picture of the new tests until after state officials complete their planned rework of the state's academic standards. Governor Pawlenty is pushing to replace the current profile of learning standards with a back-to-basics approach focusing on core subjects. His education commissioner, Cheri Pierson Yecke says, it will be an 18-month to two-year process before the standards and corresponding tests are in place.

CHERI PIERSON YECKE: The testing that we're proposing, that will be criterion-referenced tests tied to these standards, will be a very useful tool for teachers, a very useful tool for parents as well in determining exactly how their kids are performing.

TIM PUGMIRE: The test scores are also the lone measurement in a system for holding schools accountable for results. Test scores will be broken out by economic background, race and ethnicity, English proficiency, and disability. Schools that fail to improve any group's performance will be placed on a list.

Schools receiving federal Title I money will face increasingly stricter interventions. After two years on the list, schools must allow parents to send their children to higher-performing schools. Restaffing and state takeover are the ultimate sanctions.

The tests Commissioner Yecke praises as important diagnostic tools, are criticized by other educators as snapshots in time that offer little information about a school. Ian Keith, president of the St. Paul Federation of teachers, says, tests do not measure everything that's going on in a school.

IAN KEITH: Tests that we're going to be giving are going to be in math, reading, language arts, science. But we have other subjects that are equally as important. We have social studies. We have the arts. We have a whole series of elective courses up at our high school. And that is not measured on a test.

TIM PUGMIRE: Keith is among many educators who want annual tests to measure the growth individual students are making from year to year. They say, just using a test score benchmark to measure the performance of students who are far behind their classmates or who are just learning to speak English does not account for any gains they make in a given school year.

David Heistad, Director of Research Evaluation and Assessment for Minneapolis Public Schools, says, measuring gains is the only fair way to judge schools.

DAVID HEISTAD: Many of your students coming in new to the district, students who don't speak English and special ed students can't really be expected to be above a proficiency bar right away the first year. But if you actually see how much progress students make towards that standard and hold schools accountable, then you can really figure out which schools are doing the best job in terms of instruction.

TIM PUGMIRE: A key state legislator agrees. Republican representative Alice Seagren of Bloomington, chairwoman of the House K-12 finance committee, says, she doesn't like the federal model for testing under No Child Left Behind. She says, she supports, instead, a value-added testing system that would track individual students and groups of students year to year showing their growth. Seagren says, simply comparing this year's third graders to last year's third graders won't work.

ALICE SEAGREN: You may have a really outstanding group one year, and then the next year, you'll have a group that maybe isn't doing so well. So then all of a sudden, you've got these ups and downs in what appears to be a school district doing well one year. And then all of a sudden they're falling apart. Well, that's not true. It's the make-up of the students.

TIM PUGMIRE: Seagren and other lawmakers must push ahead with the federal testing requirements with extremely tight state resources. State education officials say, the cost of developing their current regimen of statewide testing, including the basic skills tests and MCAs, has totaled $8.6 million. They could also develop the new tests from scratch or buy off-the-shelf national tests.

Commissioner Yecke recently told members of Seagren's committee that the total cost of adding the new tests won't be known until new state academic standards are completed.

CHERI PIERSON YECKE: You can build a Cadillac of a test, or you can build a sound sturdy Ford of a test. I mean, it depends on where you want to be in the spectrum of testing.

TIM PUGMIRE: Yecke says Minnesota will receive $6.7 million in federal money under No Child Left Behind, which is earmarked for test development. She says, her agency will also try to salvage as much as possible from the existing statewide tests to keep costs down. I'm Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio.