Back on the original thoughts, though, and despite the fact that prep is widely done and places kids who don't prep at a disadvantage, I still can't condone prepping. IMHO whether everyone else is doing it or not and whether the test is being misused or not, studying for a test that is being used as an ability test is not right.
Do you have any thoughts about how to get around it? I feel very similarly, in part because I want to make sure that
I have a clear sense of what the results do or don't mean. If I could go and spend time getting to know the kids my kids are clustered with, I would have some sense of whether or not they were appropriately clustered. Since I don't get to do that (not only because it isn't possible but because my kids would kill me
), I have to rely somewhat on what test scores seem to show. I just don't know how to interpret the scores--and I have major concerns about how schools will interpret those scores--without knowing which students did or did not prep. I almost wish there was some kind of handicapping system like bowlers use
It would make it easier to match the right apples to the right oranges for instructional purposes.
