Current/Recent Reading List

28 August 2006

Ambiguity, thy name is testing data

Our test scores had been on the rise the last few years, after an apparently devastating set of scores a couple of years before I started. Two years ago, we were celebrated as a School of Progress (official title given courtesy of state bureau-nerds), and had the highest test scores in the county.

Well, it is most interesting how this testing game works. Turns out that last year we still had the highest scores in the county, but we dropped in overall point calculations, according to a formula as hard to grasp as the whereabouts of Jimmy Hoffa’s corpse. The folks who write tax codes are small potatoes compared to the state testing gurus.

So, where does this leave us, other than without the pittance of an incentive check we had gotten the last few years? I’m not sure, but I wonder if we have reached that point on the sliding scale where we’ve maxed out, and have to fall back in order to show growth once more.

We did, however, meet Annual Yearly Progress, which means no feds with earpieces will be monitoring our classrooms for at least two more years (I think).

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