Saturday, March 24, 2012

School Tech Connect: Equity Matters...

School Tech Connect: Equity Matters...:


Equity Matters...

...in testing. And only testing.

Omfg.

The violations included staff members reviewing completed answers sheets for missing answers and erasing stray marks. Students were also given extra time to answer questions they missed or skipped or to transcribe answers from the test booklets to the answer documents.

I understand that these violations are considered to be highly naughty but really, is this where we are as a nation? The principal resigned over these things. Michelle Rhee had entire buildings changing answers,  and she went on to become a Republican/Duncan/Emanuel superstar; and the superintendent in Atlanta basically made it clear that any whistle-blowing around answer-changing would not be tolerated. I forget what happened to her. 

In the early 90's, I was hauled into a principal's office for looking at the stack of completed tests. I was trying to give the class the impression that the test was important to me. After the test. Huge testing violation, that. This woman with frosted hair who was running the school made it clear that it was an existential crisis. Then a few years later as an actual test coordinator I would look at every single answer sheet to make sure the kids bubbled in their names and test version correctly.  If you caught even five kids who forgot to bubble in a test version, you could move your percentage tested number over a notch. Nobody ever said a word about it.

Yes, I get it. There have to be certain conditions of testing that are the same for everyone because the perfect science