Great headline on this testing oopsie - "PSSA report spaced out".
A line-spacing error that threw off the standardized test scores reported last week by the Pennsylvania Department of Education has school officials wondering if they can rely on the numbers. The error prompted the department to remove a school-by-school report on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test scores from its Web site Thursday, less than 24 hours after posting it.
"There were no problems with the scores themselves," said Stephanie Suran, deputy director of communication for the department. The spacing error put the wrong numbers into the wrong columns...Suran said the error occurred on the department of education's end while they were working with a large computer file from Data Recognition Corp., or DRC...
The data error made a considerable difference in the reported scores for Yough School District.
Superintendent Larry Nemec said that, based on previous newspaper reports, his district was listed as scoring 1,370 in math and 1,420 in reading for results from the 11th grade. The corrected scores listed the district at 1,310 for math and 1,300 for reading, much closer to the minimum proficiency requirements.
Nemec said the state should "work the bugs out" before releasing information.
"If they want to hold us accountable, maybe they ought to be a little bit more accountable on how they send out their scores," he said.
Granted, this isn't a true scoring error, but a reporting error. On the other hand, people are touchy, and anxious, about the whole deal. Releasing scores via the web that are wrong is a bad situation, no matter how easily the rectification.
Posted by kswygert at August 31, 2004 04:32 PM