+OK 7434 octets Received: from smtp00.nwnexus.com (smtp00.nwnexus.com [192.135.191.25]) by mail3.halcyon.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id NAA24915 for ; Wed, 6 Oct 1999 13:18:36 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mv.egroups.com (mv.egroups.com [207.138.41.150]) by smtp00.nwnexus.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id NAA01607 for ; Wed, 6 Oct 1999 13:18:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [10.1.2.36] by mv.egroups.com with NNFMP; 06 Oct 1999 21:18:26 -0000 Mailing-List: contact wa-ed-deform-owner@egroups.com X-Mailing-List: wa-ed-deform@egroups.com X-URL: http://www.egroups.com/list/wa-ed-deform/ Received: (listserv 1.262); by qk; 06 Oct 1999 20:18:25 -0000 Reply-To: wa-ed-deform@egroups.com Delivered-To: listsaver-egroups-wa-ed-deform@egroups.com Received: (qmail 9952 invoked from network); 6 Oct 1999 20:18:23 -0000 Received: from mail4.halcyon.com (206.63.63.62) by qg.egroups.com with SMTP; 6 Oct 1999 20:18:23 -0000 Received: from bolero.rahul.net (blv-pm104-ip10.halcyon.com [206.63.32.130]) by mail4.halcyon.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id NAA24109 for ; Wed, 6 Oct 1999 13:18:16 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199910062018.NAA24109@mail4.halcyon.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 To: From: Date: Wed, 06 Oct 1999 13:16:46 -0600 X-Mailer: Net-Tamer 1.11.2P From: "Richard G. Innes" <70224.434@compuserve.com> To: "ClearingHouse" Subject: [wa-ed-deform] [education-consumers] NAEP Corrupted by Kentucky? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: Federal Test Gets KIRIS-upted. The most respected federal education assessment may now be getting corrupted by Kentucky's decade long testing problems. In March, Kentucky's results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, were challenged when it was learned that Kentucky's six point score improvement was matched by an equally large increase in the percentage of students with learning disabilities who were excluded from taking the test. Of course scores would rise if more weak students didn't participate. The question was, by how much? For an answer, the NAEP people turned to experts at Educational Testing Service who created the test. ETS concluded we can never know the answer; but, that wasn't good enough for the Kentucky Commissioner of Education. Starved for even a glimmer of evidence that Kentucky's decade old reform had improved educational performance, he demanded another study. And, possibly because Kentucky's commissioner sits on the powerful board that governs the NAEP, he got his way. The resulting study was performed for the NAEP folks by a research organization that also has a research contract with the Kentucky Department of Education. This report [released on September 27th in the NCES web site under the what's new button (http://nces.ed.gov)], indicated that Kentucky had made statistically significant improvement on the NAEP. But, check out how the research group generated this remarkable result. The researchers tried to convert scores for our students with disabilities on KIRIS into equivalent scores on the NAEP. However, it appears very likely that virtually all these kids really didn't take a reading test with KIRIS. Extensive studies on prior years of KIRIS testing by highly respected RAND researchers make it almost certain that the vast majority of the excluded Kentucky kids had the KIRIS 'reading' test read to them by proctors! Yes, that's correct. It appears the KIRIS 'reading' results for these kids were generated by reading the test to them. And, some of these kids got even more help such as scribes to record their answers, too. So, these kids probably didn't take a reading test at all in KIRIS. They took a spoken language comprehension test, and their KIRIS results don't tell us a thing about whether they can read printed text. Obviously, comparing these 'reading' KIRIS scores to real reading results for kids who did take the NAEP could be misrepresentation of the highest order. There's even more. Some Kentuckians with mild disabilities did take the NAEP on their own. Their average score was 176.7 on NAEP's 500 point scale. But, when KIRIS scores for the excluded kids were converted to NAEP equivalents, the average worked out to something between 200.1 and 206.5. So, if we accept the findings of this report, we have to accept the notion that Kentucky's strongest students with disabilities, those who can read on their own, were badly outscored by other kids with more severe learning problems who probably had to have all questions read to them! By the way, Kentucky's learning disabled population skyrocketed 86% between 1992 and 1998. Those RAND reports mentioned above postulate that this might be due to attempts to work around Kentucky's high stakes testing program rather than a real change in the intellectual ability of the Kentucky school population. Of course, the study NCES accepted on September 27th doesn't discuss any of this and certainly never explains why Kentucky now has far more kids with learning problems than the national norm. Sadly, we are used to this sort of testing stuff in Kentucky, but it should raise eyebrows around the country that the federal agency that runs the NAEP, "The Nations Report Card," simply rolled over and proclaimed this easily challenged report was the final say in this matter. NAEP folks were mighty embarassed when this story first broke because they completely missed the exclusion situation. Now, with the old federal Commissioner of Education Statistics departed under very unusual circumstances, it appears that the sort of business that's usual in Kentucky education will soon be business as usual in Washington -- unless people start to speak out. Clearly, problems with radical reform education and the attendant propagandizing go far beyond the borders of the Bluegrass State. If you care about this subject, and if it alarms you that a growing percentage of US students are being labeled disabled and then are being tested in ways that might hide their illiteracy, please let your congressman know in Washington. Richard Innes EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE networking and information for parents and taxpayers on the internet Website & Archives: http://education-consumers.com You are currently subscribed to education-consumers as: arthurhu@halcyon.com TO UNSUBSCRIBE: Send a blank email to leave-education-consumers-989462S@lists.dundee.net For less mail, use the following link and choose 1) a daily digest, 2) a daily list of subjects, or 3) no mail (read postings on Web) http://lists.dundee.net/scripts/lyris.pl?enterˇucation-consumers For more help & info: http://www.lyris.com/help or ------------------------------------------------------------------------ @Backup - The #1 Online Backup Service. Protect your files before you lose them. 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