Friday, May 10, 2013

New Error Found in Test Scoring for Gifted Programs - NYTimes.com

New Error Found in Test Scoring for Gifted Programs - NYTimes.com:


New Error Found in Scoring of Test for Gifted Programs






Three weeks after New York City disclosed that thousands of students had been wrongly excluded from eligibility in public school gifted programs, the Education Department said that roughly 300 additional students received incorrect scores because of another mistake by the testing company.
Dennis M. Walcott, the schools chancellor, said on Friday that the Education Department was considering terminating the contract with the company, Pearson. After thefirst errors of the company were found, the city withheld $500,000 from its $5.5 million contract.
The city said 82 students were newly eligible for seats in districtwide programs, meaning that they had scored at or above the 90th percentile. It said 64 others were now eligible for one of the five more competitive, citywide gifted programs, open to those at the 97th percentile or higher.
In addition, the percentile ranks of 159 students will rise, within the competition for districtwide or citywide programs, though it was unclear what effect that would have on