Tommy Parker knows that failing one of Mississippi’s high-stakes tests in high school can change a life.
It can mean the difference between college and a factory job; between scraping by and a chance for more. The former principal is still haunted by the few times he told parents their children wouldn’t receive a high school diploma because they had failed the exams.
So when Parker, now a school district superintendent, learned last year that three of his students had actually passed a state graduation test they’d long thought they’d failed, his disillusionment deepened.
“You put your faith and confidence in the state department of education and the companies they have contracts with to build and validate these tests,” he said. “To discover that something is wrong with it, it throws up a lot of doubts.”
Getting each child an accurate score is, in the end, the single most important task states undertake when they give standardized tests.
Yet a year-long investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that testing companies and the education agencies that hire them continue to make scoring mistakes that can have dire consequences.
via Scoring errors jeopardize tests: Poor oversight raises risk | www.myajc.com.
Comments ( 0 )