http://www.afaar.org/LetToEd2ARAdoptsKy'sFlawedTesting.htm
Arkansas Adopts Kentucky's Flawed Testing
Arkansas laws (Acts 915 & 1172) now allow the state to take over any school whose test scores don't measure up to the state's expectations. The State Department is using these laws as leverage to force teachers to align their curriculum to these tests. Teachers are being advised in workshops across the state to weed out those parts of their curriculum that are not on the tests. Many superintendents and administrators, fearful of having their schools taken over by the state, are telling their teachers, "If it is not on the test, don't teach it."
Arkansas tests for 4th grade, 8th grade and the exit exam are being designed by Advanced Systems, the company that designed tests for Kentucky's educational reforms. These tests were controversial and the constant subject of newspaper articles in Kentucky from 1991 to 1998, when the Senate voted 35-1 to scrap them after paying this testing company about 70 million dollars.
Testing experts from five universities, commissioned by Kentucky, had issued a scathing report saying the tests developed by Advanced Systems were "seriously flawed" and included 50 pages of possible legal problems. The director of Education Accountability said Kentucky deserved a refund because Advanced Systems had failed to deliver a "usable product", and Senator Jay Williams on the educational committee said, "All testing data in Kentucky for the last decade is totally invalid and useless." George K. Cunningham, a college educational psychologist said, "Some of those questions [on the tests] nobody in the state can answer correctly."
The fact that 98% of students failed the math portion and 89% the Reading section of the Arkansas pilot exit exam should have caused our State Department to scrap the test and the testing company, but instead they proceeded to pilot the 4th grade test in which only a small minority of the students passed. If they had done their homework, the State Department would have found that the President of Advanced Systems said in 1994 that they had earned their reputation almost by accident, saying, "We couldn't afford to hire anybody who knew anything abut testing, so we hired people who were bright and committed."
Officials advocating these educational reforms actually tout them as local control when in reality they are a back door approach to a government controlled curriculum. (Government control is the explanation behind all the absurdities in this matter - remember the $500 government toilet seats.) If it is local control, why doesn't the state allow the teachers to evaluate the tests. According to an extensive study, 67 percent of parents trust teachers for educational decisions and only 28% trust elected officials.
If the readers of this letter would share it with their legislators, administrators, and teachers, the public outcry might save us from the waste of taxpayer money and botched educational reforms endured by citizens of Kentucky. (Verification of any of these facts will be supplied to anyone who wants them.)
Vickie Harrison,
Jonesboro, AR 72404,
Printed in Arkansas papers
April, 1999
“letedky”
"LetToEd2ArAdoptsKy'sFlawedTesting"