Coming Soon: Test Scores

School districts received the following email this week:

Superintendents and District Testing Coordinators,

Please see the calendar below for a schedule for the release of test scores.

Test Scores Released	August 23
Districts have 30-day window to verify tests scores	August 29 to September 30
Districts have a 10-day window to review A-F Report Cards	October 10 to 23
SDE staff presents A-F Report Cards To SBE for approval	October 24 BOE meeting

Think about this for a minute. Testing was in late April and early May. That’s a four month turnaround just to get test scores in the hands of administrators, teachers, and parents. In many places around Oklahoma, school has already started. Educators have had to make placement, remediation, and class size decisions based on incomplete data.

Why do we accept this?

Meanwhile, our state’s laudable laughable accountability measure, the A-F Report Cards, will not be released until late October. If you place any stock in such things, then 25 percent of the way through the school year is way too late to be letting the public know how schools did last year. At that point, we will be six months beyond the time the tests were taken and six months away from the next cycle.

Is this consistent with the intent of the legislature, the governor, the remaining members of the State Board of Education, and Jeb Bush’s foundation?

When online testing failed across two states, it was largely the testing company’s fault. Not being able to give stakeholders results in a timely manner falls at the feet of the SDE.