Stanton test security questioned: A, B, C, or D...efect?

Thu, 20 Apr 2006 18:14:00 GMT

By Katie Williams

Stanton Middle School is currently undergoing investigations about concerns related to the administration of recent state achievement tests. Kent City Schools District is one of the 11 school districts in Ohio conducting investigations regarding possible breaches of testing security. Because it is still in progress, specifics of the investigation are confidential at this time. According to Kent City Schools superintendent Marc Crail, specific guidelines at both the state and local levels must be followed to ensure tests are indeed standardized throughout the state of Ohio. “The rules for administering the state achievement tests are really strict,” Crail said. “If a school district thinks there may have been a problem it’s our responsibility to report the problem.” After the standardized tests were administered recently, a Stanton teacher reported a major concern that these rules may not have been followed as they should have been to principal Timothy Dortch, who then notified Crail. Once the school district is made aware of a possible testing mistake, it is required to perform a personal investigation of the situation and submit a report to the Ohio Department of Education in Columbus. Sometimes districts notify the Department of Education that an investigation will be taking place, but it is not required. The investigation is mainly comprised of interviewing teachers and other involved in the situation in order to gain as much information about the incident as possible. The facts gained from speaking to teachers will then be sent to Columbus to be reviewed by those at the Department of Education. “First we talked to all the people who might have known something about it and second we tried to put that in some sort of chronological order and get it all into a format that will be understandable by someone reading it,” Crail said. “Once we send our report down to Columbus, the State Board of Education will read it…and they will advise us on what they think should happen.” Results from the investigation will be determined by the Board in Columbus based on their opinion of the severity of the issue at hand. According to Crail, consequences may range from simply being told to be more cautious with the next testing administration to a teacher’s teaching certificate being suspended. Since the investigations have not yet been concluded, these possible consequences are solely speculative, and could apply to any district’s investigations. “At [the time we receive the report] the state can decide if they need to investigate,” Carruthers said. “[Consequences] really just depend on what the incident is. It could be for anything from errors to not following directions to the other side which would be intentionally sharing information.” This is the first time that an incident like this has occurred in the Kent City School District. Security cautions are taken with each testing administration to prevent a mistake from happening. “Each school district has a testing coordinator and the tests arrive in secure boxes, sometimes they are shrink wrapped,” spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Education Karla Carruthers said. “There are lots of precautions, but there’s always room for mistakes,” Crail said. The recent investigations at Stanton, as well as national discrepancies regarding stan-dardized tests has sparked some controversies about the validity of standardized testing. In the news recently there has been much debate over the validity of standardized testing and whether it can effectively measure a student’s knowledge and understanding of a particular subject. For example, many students mistakenly did not complete the writing section of the recent Ohio Graduation Test due to confusion about an intentional blank page at the end of the section. Crail notes that the recent events at Stanton could possibly have an impact on how people view standardized tests. “I think potentially yes. The state has an obligation to make the administration of these tests as fair and simple and straightforward as is possible. I would hope that next year they might use this to solve problems that may have lead to mistakes,” Crail said. This is the first year that achievement tests have been required for every grade level. Contrary to the sophomore year Ohio Graduation Test required for graduation, achievement tests aim to measure students’ progress from one year to the next. “Achievement tests measure growth between one year to the next. The goal is that all students should make a year’s worth of growth in a year,” Crail said. By using the achievement tests, students’ growth can be determined on an individualized basis based on their own test scores from the previous year. Crail is not concerned about a possible effect from the investigations on the upcoming school levy. “I’m proud of how our faculty has and students have reacted to [the situation] and how much hard work they have down to prepare for the tests. We want them to do well because of hard work, not because of possible unfair advantages,” Crail said.