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Associated Press Report Finds Schools' Reporting InaccurateSchool Districts throughout the country and the U.S. Department of Education (USED) are scrambling to explain a recent report generated by the Associated Press that claims approximately 2 million students are not having their standardized testing scores reported correctly. At issue is a loophole that allows the test scores of school districts' minority and economically disadvantaged students to be included the total reporting. This contradicts the major intent of NCLB, which was to track the progress of such groups separately. In this case, school districts have obtained exemptions from breaking out the scores if the group is a not statistically significant portion of their total student population. The AP report states that USED has allowed varying exemptions depending on the school district. For example: * Missouri does not have to break out scores for sub groups if there are less than 30 in the testing population, * Oklahoma is allowed to exclude if there are fewer than 52 in a racial category, which amounts to 1 in 5 of the total testing population, and * In Texas none of the state's 65,000 Asians and Native Americans scores are being broken out by race. Consequences for failure to meet Adequate Yearly Progress are driving districts such as Belleville, Illinois, to ask for exemptions. The student population is about two-thirds white and one third African American. Approximately 40 percent of the white third graders exceeded reading standards, while 17 percent of African American third graders did. USED has been creating exemptions for suffering school districts since at least 2004. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings feels that two percent two percent of excluded scores was too many. "Are there things we need to do to look at that, batten down the hatches, make sure those kids are part of the system? You bet," she said. The Department has also clarified that all of the test scores were counted and reported in the totals, but just not broken out by race or economic status in these cases. The Commission on No Child Left Behind also released a statement regarding the AP report. "This story by the Associated Press is alarming, and unfortunately, apparently confirmed by much of the Commission's own work...While the Commission has not yet reached its conclusions, it will continue to focus on these issues as a major source of concern in ensuring that all children learn and succeed." In the near future, they will be releasing a report that studied specified schools and whether or not they are meeting their AYP because of disadvantaged sub groups. Whether this means there will be significant changes in the law during the 2007 reauthorization is not clear. AEP will be closely monitoring developments over the next months to see what issues are likely to be addressed next year.
Questions, ideas, or in need of more information? Please contact Stacey Pusey at 302-295-8349.
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