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Outrages

  

9134 in the collection  

    Kings of Timed High-Stakes Testing Needed More Time


    The state gave up trying Friday to get usable scores from the Stanford 9 achievement test given to children across Georgia last spring, after months of trying to fix the problem.

    Officials with the company that produces the test said they could get accurate results if given more time, but the children who took the Stanford 9 have already started a new school year.

    The scores are used by educators to determine whether students need extra help, help qualify students for gifted programs and compare Georgia children to other students nationally. Some school systems also use the students' scores on the Stanford 9 tests in helping to determine merit pay for their teachers. . . .

    Some parents were disappointed because their children spent a week taking tests that cannot be evaluated properly.

    "It's just very frustrating that so much effort could be put into the kids preparing for a test, and that test is a total waste of time," said Martha Fair, mother of two students at Sarah Smith Elementary School in Buckhead. "It is beyond belief that a company who administers a test like this -- that's all they do -- can't figure out how to grade it appropriately."

    This is the second year Harcourt Educational Measurement failed to provide results of its Stanford 9 test in time to be used to assess Georgia's students. . . . Given a few more months, Harcourt officials thought they could fix the problems. But. . . it was already too late for the students who took the test last spring. . . .

    The problem stems from "equating" the 2002 test to the 2001 test to make sure they are of equal difficulty. Harcourt used a common equating method, but the numbers simply didn't add up.

    The company called in three national testing experts to try to fix the problem, to no avail. . . .

    — James Salzer & and Paul Donsky
    Time's up for test scores: State Won't Wait for Fixes to Stanford 9
    Atlanta Journal-Constitution
    August 17, 2002
    http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/0802/17stanford9.html

    INDEX OF OUTRAGES

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