Friday, April 4, 2014

Barfing on high-stakes exams? Literally. - K-12 Zone

Barfing on high-stakes exams? Literally. - K-12 Zone:



Barfing on high-stakes exams? Literally.

 
food animated GIF
We’ve all heard stories that students get nervous, even sick, before high-stakes exams. It turns out the Texas Education Agency tracks this, in a way.
The agency reports that 102 exams, out of 13.2 million last year, were returned to the testing company Pearson designated as containing “biohazardous materials.”
“This designation includes blood, vomit, and ‘other,’ ” spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe wrote to Houston Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg.
In 2012, the agency counted 72 “biohazardous” exams.
While the agency tracks a lot of data, we’re sorry to report there’s no breakdown of just the barfed-on tests. The dirtied exams may mostly be a result of bloody noses, paper cuts and stomach bugs, not nerves.
Feel free to leave your icky testing stories in the comments, which we’ll read after lunch.

After parents and community leaders continued to protest over the looming closure of Dodson Elementary, HISD trustees plan to reconsider the school’s fate. Board president Juliet Stipeche and trustees Wanda Adams and Rhonda-Skillern Jones used their authority to bring the item back to the board for consideration Thursday, four weeks after voting 5-4 to close […]