MSPAP is an examination system that Maryland has been using for almost a decade to assess student performance. It consists of a set of "performance tasks" given all Maryland school children at the levels of grades 3, 5, and 8.
We spent days studying copies of all the exams given in the past few years, with actual student answers and scoring data selected for each file to show typical student performance - and graders' performance in assessing the quality of the answers.
The system was of no value for its announced purpose. In most subjects, the tasks did not come close to testing for knowledge of the things asked for in Maryland's own standards ... the grading was inconsistent, with correct answers often not recognized as such by some of the graders, and incorrect answers given full credit. The questions themselves were often incoherent, trivial or based on erroneous understanding of the subject matter ...
School mathematics education in the United States has recently fallen prey to some sadly ineffective and mischievous notions. To oppose them is not to advocate return to some mythical past golden age. The state of mathematics education has never been good, and reform of some sort is always in the wind. But it does not follow that those of us who as mathematicians (and citizens) find current dogma mistaken are seeking to return to some earlier error.
Maryland's MSPAP is fatally flawed, and it is time for Maryland to realize it has made a mistake, and to repair it.