Harcourt Assessment, Inc., is in the news again - and not in a good way:
Specialists at the [Hawai'i] Department of Education are combing through a battery of standardized tests looking for more errors after test coordinators, teachers and students spotted numerous mistakes this spring.
The errors raise questions about the high-stakes tests, which are taken by thousands of Hawai'i students and used to determine whether schools meet annual goals under the federal No Child Left Behind law, with schools that fall short facing consequences.
The state has documented errors in the instructions, samples and the actual tests. After the review is complete, the DOE may either throw out incorrect test questions, give students credit or partial credit for some questions or, as a last resort, have students retake portions of the tests.
The tests were prepared by Harcourt Assessment Inc., a San Antonio, Texas-based company that has a five-year, $20 million contract with the DOE...
Harcourt's president apologized to state officials in Oklahoma last month after errors were found on sample questions on student tests. In the past several years, according to press reports, Harcourt has also been involved in test errors in a handful of other states, including Nevada, where it paid a $425,000 fine after mistakes led to failing scores for more than 700 Nevada high school students.
Posted by kswygert at May 11, 2004 09:48 AM