Tuesday, June 25, 2013

A Story Of Shifting Regents Scores

From a comment at Gotham Schools:

The remainder of our missing English Regents scores came into today. Many of the scores that we already had were changed. Many of the students who originally had zeros in the writing sections now have higher scores. Some of the scores rose by more than 20 points. From what I hear, there were quite a few graders who were not licensed to teach high school English grading that test. This whole thing has just been a disaster. How do we know if all the exams that were graded incorrectly have been re-graded? How can we trust that the tests were graded fairly and objectively? Will we have the opportunity to review our students exams, or will McGraw-Hill conveniently destroy them when they are done?

When I was grading the ELA Regents exam last week, the person running the grading room told every teacher there that she/he should go back to school and look over the Regents exams of students who failed the test after the exams were brought back, so I do not think McGraw-Hill will be destroying the exams as the commenter wondered.

But the advice to look over the exams when they are returned to the individual schools is good and should be followed.

The potentiality for errors is much higher this year than in the past because of the scanning issues, the computer system glitches and breakdowns, the extended grading window, the driving of the tests to Connecticut and trying to get them all scanned as the clock ran down on the grading time.

I am sure there have been plenty of errors in the grading and scoring of the exams this year and while I'm certain the NYSED and the NYCDOE will try and head off calls for an audit of the exam grades, given how chaotic and messy the whole process was and given how high the stakes are for students, teachers and schools, that's exactly what should be done.

This is especially so if this story of shifting scores on the exams is true - a story that is still unconfirmed.

Has anybody else heard of shifting scores from last week to this week?

Has anybody else heard of any other funkiness around the scores?

1 comment:

  1. These students are the heart of what I have come to think of as the "all-volunteer generation," a cohort of people raised during a time when American militarism commands vast amounts of human, economic, technological, and resources for war, but who can choose the extent to which they expose their bodies and minds to its potentialities. moving office

    ReplyDelete