Profound Measurement Error in Louisiana “PARCC” Scale Scores
On October 12, 2015, the following email from Louisiana superintendent John White was forwarded to district superintendents, accompanied with 12 files detailing raw-score-to-scale-score conversions for the tests given to Louisiana students in spring 2015 in grades 3 through 8 in ELA and math:
Attached please find charts for converting raw scores to scale scores for 2015 grade 3-8 English and math state assessments.These are the same conversion tables as will be used in other states where these forms are active. Scale scores and cut scores derived from these conversions will be comparable with those in other states, provided that BESE approves comparable cut scores.John
The question of whether the tests Louisiana students took are exactly the same test that all PARCC states have taken, as White is quoted saying in a September 29, 2015, article in The Lens, is not settled by the fact that in The Lens article, White implies that all PARCC states used “the same form”–
Students across Louisiana “took the exact same form as did kids across the country,” White said. “Same questions. Same order. Nothing different.” [Emphasis added.]
–but in the email excerpt above, White includes a disclaimer about the scale scores applying “in other states where these forms are active.”
To date, White has offered the public no formal documentation to substantiate his Profound Measurement Error in Louisiana “PARCC” Scale Scores | deutsch29:
