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Testing Update
Laura Bemus, Assistant Superintendent
Greenville City Schools
In February, 2016 districts across the state of Ohio received test data
from the Ohio Department of Education for tests that were administered
in April, 2015. After receiving A’s in Value-Added overall data
in 2013 and 2014, Greenville City Schools received an F, according to
the grades released by the Ohio Department of
Education. Knowing that teaching and instruction
methods have only improved during that time period, we became concerned
about the testing method reliability.
What is value-added? Value-added measures, or growth measures,
are measures used to estimate how much of a positive or negative effect
individual teachers have on student learning during the course of a
given school year, based on sophisticated statistical algorithms and
standardized test results. Value-added progress is reported in
Ohio based on testing in grades 4-8 in Math and Language Arts.
The Ohio Department of Education states that, “Value-added analysis
should help educators measure the impact that schools and teachers have
on students’ academic progress rates from year to year and also that
Ohio selected a value-added measure that should provide educators with
information on how they can use data to focus instruction”. Both
of these purposes have not been met with the 2014-15 school year
testing and data. The information provided is not useful for us
to focus instruction. It is comparable to a patient going to the Dr.
for an illness in April, 2015 and getting the results and prescription
for healing the illness in February, 2016.
Our concern for our students in Greenville, and across the State, has
caused us to collaborate and research the data. Preliminary
research using “similar districts” as determined by the Ohio Department
of Education reveals a similar pattern with a correlation of changed
testing format. In 2014-15 Districts were able to choose if they
wanted to begin testing students online or continue using paper and
pencil to test. We were also told by the Ohio Department of
Education that every district in the State would be required to use
computers for online testing beginning in 2015-2016, which is no longer
true. However, the data indicates that
districts that tested online had results that were greatly impacted for
value-added reporting.
Michael Molnar, Executive Director of Educational Services for the
Amherst Schools has the information from 438 schools and his data can
be found at https://goo.gl/Td7NJH . The conclusion from the
extensive research is:
“The data proves that the differing formats of last year’s PARCC
testing greatly impacted and altered the value added data.
Paper-only districts performed better than online-only districts.
Many factors could contribute to this disparity but by comparing online
testing districts to paper testing districts, the Ohio Department of
Education is not providing accurate and fair information to the
public. The 2015 value added grades released by the Ohio
Department of Education are unreliable and invalid.”
The Ohio legislature should use these statistics to justify passing
legislation to select one testing format (online or paper) for all
future testing to ensure that all school districts are being compared
and assessed equitable. Our results arrived after the deadline to
declare how we will test students this spring, so many districts;
including Greenville City Schools are going to give the tests online
again in 2016, knowing that this caused unreliable and invalid data in
2015.
We should be accountable for achievement and growth for our
students! We work diligently to make a difference and help
students learn and will continue to do so every day. Our MAP
scores from testing students in grades K – 8 three times per year are
used in Math and Language Arts to frequently monitor learning growth
(value-added), set goals with students and remediate or enrich
instruction. The MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) scores are
nationally normed for reliability. Our accountability is
constantly monitored and not just based on one test each year.
At a news conference on Thursday Feb. 22nd in Columbus State Rep.
Teresa Fedor (D., Toledo) and State Board of Education member A.J.
Wagner urged the public to ignore this year’s results, saying they’re
from a flawed test that the state has already abandoned.
Unfortunately the data was late, inaccurate and harmful to the children
and communities across the state of Ohio.
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