A couple of weeks back, it looked like Michigan's MEAP was on the way out. The MEAP is expensive, and the score gap is substantial. But now it appears that Michigan's educators aren't quite ready to replace the MEAP, despite its flaws, and spoke to members of the House education committee about the exam:
Educators attending a meeting yesterday to discuss the future of the Michigan Educational Assessment Program acknowledged the state’s standardized test was imperfect, but they weren’t ready to give up on it...Six state representatives from the House education committee listened as more than a dozen educators from throughout southeast Michigan expressed both their pleasure and concerns with the test...
Prompted by severe criticism of the test, especially in light of the significant delay in the release of this year’s results, the committee is looking for input on what is wrong with the test. They also asked whether the test, which is more than 30 years old, should be the one the state uses.
Overwhelmingly, the nearly 50 educators and community members at yesterday’s meeting said yes...
Why the "overwhelming" response? Apparently, because districts have put a lot of time, effort, and money into revamping classroom curricula to match the MEAP. Changing the test means changing the class content as well. However, the educators did suggest some changes:
...they offered suggestions on how to make things better, namely not to make the test count for so much when dolling out the districts’ progress reports. Also, educators expressed concerns about how special education students, transient students, and low-income students factor into their scores.
Posted by kswygert at October 28, 2003 10:28 AM