Imagine yourself on the first day of school. You're a high school senior and the teacher has handed out the syllabus that explains the grading scale. Fast-forward to May. It's two weeks until graduation, and you've worked your tail off to earn an "A" with a 91 percent. Without warning, the teacher says, "I'm throwing out the old grading scale. To get an A in my class you'll need a 95 percent."
This is the situation facing Oklahoma students today. In further attempts to make Oklahoma schools look bad, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Janet Barresi has arbitrarily changed cut scores - the scores students need to pass certain state tests - and she's done so after the tests were taken. Talk about a morale-killer, especially for students who have already put in the hard work and would have scored proficient or higher.
No one is against higher standards. Let's just decide what those standards are before the game is in play.
It's argued that changing the cut scores in this manner will make teachers and students work harder. All it really does is demoralize them. Changing a cut-score and calling it "improved rigor" or "higher standards" is disingenuous. Improved rigor comes through changing expectations and what is taught in the classroom - not in changing the grading scale long after the test has been taken.
Jenks Middle School Principal Rob Miller recently wrote on his blog that in 2012, 96 percent of Jenks students earned passing scores on the biology End of Instruction exam. Because of the recent change in cut scores, that percentage dropped 30 points in 2013, or more than 200 students in Jenks.
Tulsa Public Schools saw a similar decrease of 22 percent of students no longer passing this test. In Sapulpa, the drop is 30 percent and across the state, students and parents can expect similar disappointment. And this is one of the end of instruction exams required under ACE to earn a diploma in Oklahoma.
We want our students to be able to compete nationally, especially in science. For the record: Oklahoma students perform at the national average in science, as scored by ACT.
This manipulative altering of cut scores raises serious ethical questions. Ironically, just last month, Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett resigned after discovery of behind-the-scenes manipulation of a school grading formula in Indiana. We are left to wonder what the motivation really is for artificially lowering student proficiency rates across the state.
I, along with the superintendents of other school districts in the Tulsa area, including Tulsa Public Schools, Union, Jenks, Broken Arrow, Sand Springs, Owasso, Liberty and Bixby, have deep concerns about the test scores.
School leaders' concerns began with a huge testing snafu with the testing vendor selected by the state Department of Education. Its continuing accounting errors led to the company misplacing thousands of test booklets. Our concerns continue to build with our state superintendent's capricious decision to alter students' success in school.
Oh, and don't forget this is the same data that will be used to grade schools on the A-F scale.
All of the school administrators I know are not opposed to accountability. In fact, we embrace it.
The state Department of Education held a press conference to announce preliminary results, but it has yet to share all of the cut scores with districts. We don't support the use of invisible yardsticks.
Our chief concern is the lack of transparency around high-stakes testing. Boots-on-the-ground educators should be a partner at the table when transitions in expectations are discussed. Change cannot happen overnight and in the dark.
Raising standards must be done together, with students and parents in mind. Raising standards alone does not ensure that performance will increase. Increased student performance happens in the classroom, not in the back room of the Oklahoma Department of Education.
This is a major disservice to the more than 130,000 students in the Tulsa area and the more than 650,000 students in Oklahoma. Our kids deserve better than that.
Kevin Burr is superintendent of Sapulpa Public Schools and chairman of the Tulsa Council of Area School Administrators.
Original Print Headline: Changing cut scores after tests taken unfair
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