Board Bulletin - Educational Observations, Insights and Commentary for State Policymakers

This year’s Maryland high school seniors - the first class for which the requirements apply - will still have to pass four subject tests in order to graduate with a diploma after the Maryland State Board of Education voted 7-4 to keep the requirement and not delay it one year. 

The rescored Illinois state assessment results are not much changed from last year’s results (unlike the originally reported scores which prompted the review in the first place).

The Iowa State Board of Education wants the legislature to require writing tests for 3rd, 6th, and 10th graders.

Roughly half of special education students have passed the Caolifornia high school exit exam. What are they going to do about it? Re-examine the exam.

Looks like the Florida State Board of Education is moving toward changes to prevent local districts from padding their graduation rates with GED completers.

Are you smarter than a psychometrician?

In South Carolina, the state board of education is running a contest to name the state’s new statewide testing system that will replace the “Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test.”

Vote here by September 1.

I’m not sure what is more amazing: that the New York Times editorial board has come out in favor of national standards, or that it came out in support of the concept without actually mentioning “national standards” in its editorial today.

Instead, the Timesmen opted for the indirect and more ambiguous policy call for the National Assessment Governing Board to “create a rigorous test that would be given free to states that agreed to use NAEP scoring standards.” A test that would be based on national standards and would be used to hold states accountable for the academic performance of their students. The wonder is why the Times’ editorialists couldn’t or wouldn’t call it “national standards.”

Slight improvements to reading, writing, and science state test scores for Michigan high school students, but more than half failed the math exam.

Harcourt Assessment botched the Illinois state assessments to the point where they lost the contract. Now their replacement, Pearson, is being ordered to rescore one million math and reading exams because of wildly fluctuating scores.

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine is reviewing a proposal by the State Board of Education to increase the accountability standards for the Commonwealth’s high schools, reports the Washington Post.

Under the proposal, state officials would use a computer system to track students throughout their academic careers to determine the number of diplomas, GEDs and other certificates that schools award during any given year. Schools would receive accreditation based on those results. Current accreditation standards are based on pass rates on the annual Standards of Learning exams.

As part of the accreditation process, schools would be rated on a points system. For instance, schools would be awarded 100 points for each student who received a diploma; the school would earn 75 points if a student received a general equivalency diploma. If a student earned a certificate of completion, given to those who don’t earn high-school diplomas or their equivalent, the school would receive 60 points.

After several days of hearings, the Arizona State Board of Education has decided NOT to takeover the Roosevelt school district. The board unanimously voted that the district, while troubled, was ”moving in the right direction,” according to state board member Jesse Ary.

Legislators appear to approve of the Arkansas State Board of Education’s decision to keep the troubled Decatur school district running but to take it over.

“The Mississippi Board of Education is raising testing standards again in its effort to put the state’s students on par with those in the rest of the country…Officials announced that it will impose tougher standards that will make it more difficult for students to earn the “advanced” and “proficient” designations based on state test results,” reports WAPT.com.

By raising our educational expectations, we are ensuring our children receive a quality education that makes them competitive, both in higher educational pursuits and the global workforce,” Gov. Haley Barbour said in a statement. “I commend Dr. (Hank) Bounds and the State Board of Education for working to improve Mississippi’s public education system.”

In the spirit that learning is its own reward and that students do not always need to be rewarded for accomplishing that which is expected of them, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday vetoed a bill that would have given middle school students non-monetary awards for passing standardized tests.

Actually, the Governator did not say all of that. Instead, he said that no state law was needed because there are no statutes that prevents districts from doling out their own “nonmonetary payola,” as it was called in the Sacramento Bee.

The New York Board of Regents are not happy with the delays in reporting state test scores that are the result of a data management system upgrade that was supposed to make things easier and faster. It’s not just the state, though, McGraw-Hill’s “Grow Network” is also involved in the complicated reporting process. Officials hope to have the statewide info out by July 31.

Robert Bennett, chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, says, “”I find the whole situation totally intolerable. The board is very upset about this and will continue to dig to find out why this happened.”

Underperforming South Carolina schools are making imrpovement changes after the State Board threatened to takeover.

“By issuing the public reprimand, the state Board of Education sent a message to school boards around the state that this lack of effort won’t be tolerated,” said State Superintendent Jim Rex.

The Louisiana Department of Education is removing six schools from it’s underpeforming list after Louisiana State Board member Leslie Jacobs raised questions about the evaluation criteria.

The increase in Maryland’s state test scores is getting a closer examination. Now comes word that this year’s tests were shortened, but not made easier as compared to earlier versions (and the year over year results are still essentially comparable). A big problem seems to be that Department officials didn’t inform the State Board of the changes made to the exams when they were briefed on the results - and only found out after outside questions started to emerge.

Apparently ETS doesn’t believe in disaggregating student test scores.

Fascinating story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about what happens when the competing demands of politicians and the public in curbing “social promotion” clash with the real world implications/consequences for families in the system when tens of thousands of students could be held back. What’s so interesting is that it appears that parents don’t want their kids held back just as much as schools. Also, massive circumvention of the state’s tough high-stakes testing requirements - even if everyone is making a good faith effort to rely on a student’s academic performance beyond a single test as the justification for promoting them - is only undermining confidence in the tests and accountability generally.

Two key points:

Students are supposed to pass math and reading tests in eighth and fifth grades, and reading in third grade, to move up. For those CRCTs, the newspaper found 10 to 20 percent of students failed on their first try in 2006 and 2007.

But only a small percentage were ultimately retained: 2.5 percent of eighth-grade testers, 1.7 percent of fifth-graders, and 2.9 percent of third-graders.

Even students who failed a retest were rarely held back. In 2007, for instance, 92 percent of the nearly 9,500 eighth-graders who couldn’t pass the math CRCT were promoted.

and

“There are just honestly a lot of folks who really push back at high-stakes testing,” she [State Superintendent Kathy Cox] said. “They say, ‘You know what, I’m not going to put my child through that again.’ ”

At the other end of the spectrum, some students do not have supportive parents who will make sure they get remedial help and take the retest, she said.

This may be the start of a larger national trend in greater parent push back on high-stakes testing. Not opposing the tests themselves, but working the system to evade the consequences of the scores.

how fine a line is there between thorough test prep and cheating. In this case, I’m not sure how much blame should be assigned to Scoretop, the student test-takers, and the GMAC for not ensuring a more secure test. It seems that, like political scandals, colleges will likely go after students not for using the service but for lying about it. 

Idaho students won’t sit for the ISAT this fall.

The State Board of Education has waived students taking the fall Idaho Standards Achievement Test for next year.

The exam was meant to help teachers gauge student academic growth between fall and spring and was considered a hallmark of the Ed Board’s plan to test student progress when the ISAT’s were first introduced in the early part of this decade.

But the exams have not lived up to their potential and the roughly $500,000 savings could be used to help restore the ninth grade spring ISAT that was lost when the Ed Board encountered financial problems earlier this year, said Tom Luna, state superintendent of public instruction.

…Or is it the other way around and ETS failed the common sense test? In any case, 67 year old Elly Kluge isn’t grading ETS’s AP exams this year cause she couldn’t produce a second form of ID to go along with her driver’s license and ETS had the veteran evaluator listed under her maiden name.

A failing grade all around.

The Oregon State Board of Education has approved a new high school graduation test.

Starting with the class of 2012, high school graduates in Oregon will have to either pass a national test, state subject exams or complete a local alternative in order to get their diploma.

After months of debate, members of the state board of education officially signed off on the changes, which will be coupled with tougher graduation requirements.

Under the new rules, graduating from an Oregon high school will require completion of 24 credits, instead of the current 22, including more classes in higher-level math and science.

Students will also be expected to demonstrate that they’ve mastered “essential skills” in reading, writing, applied math and public speaking, which they can do via one of three testing options: either by passing a national standardized test like the SAT or the ACT, by passing state tests in core subjects, or by completing a senior project or portfolio that’s evaluated locally according to state standards.

The Georgia State Board of Education has contracted for an audit of its math and science tests to make sure the questions are aligned with the curriculum. Though such studies are required under NCLB, the audit has more urgency in the wake of results that showed 38% of Georgia students failed the math test.

From Nevada