DSST: College View Middle School teacher, Jeff Campbell, right, talks with 6th grade student, Alondra Ferralez-Hermosillo, during class October 15, 2014. Fellow student, Pedro Guevara-Maldondo, second from left, listens to the conversation. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)
The state Board of Education tossed another grenade onto the state’s assessment system Wednesday, voting 4-3 to reject a recommended scoring system for new Colorado-developed high school science and social studies tests.
Board members who prevailed cited concerns that too many students would fall short of expectations, that students were tested on subjects weren’t taught, and also questioned the makeup and formation of the committee that set the so-called cut scores.
The move means that families, schools and districts awaiting the results of tests taken last fall will not get them — at least soon — and gives the state no way to use the tests in its accountability system, state officials say.
As it became clear that the cut scores were going to be tossed, board chairwoman Marcia Neal, a Grand Junction Republican, had harsh words for some of her colleagues and their action. She said the cut scores are the result of years of work by Coloradans, and grew out of a process authorized by state board members.
“You are wanting to redo six years of state board work because you are smarter than we were,” she said.
Neal said “to see it shut down by new people who weren’t here, and we are going to start all over, is just devastating to me personally and many of the employees who have worked for us — worked so hard.”
The board has two new members, Republican Steve Durham, who moved to reject the score, and Democrat Val Flores, who joined Durham in rejecting them.
Durham said it’s fundamentally unfair to test students on subjects they have not had the opportunity to learn. Most high schools do not teach economics, he said, and the proposal was to base more than a fourth of a social score based on that subject. He said it would lead to an unfair characterization that “we really have a bunch of social studies illiterates in the state.”
Jack Daly, a social studies teacher from the rural Hi Plains R-23 school district on the Eastern Plains, defended the process of developing the standards and tests. He said rural interests often feel ignored, but he was involved in a committee and felt part of the process. He said if a subject isn’t being taught, it isn’t valued — and testing can change that, provide an incentive for districts to invest in subjects like economics.
Neal, a retired teacher and local school board member, said the cut scores are supposed to be “aspirational.”
Durham said he would like to see the 28-member panel that set the cut scores “reconstituted.” Fellow Republican Debora Scheffel, of Parker, concurred, saying she wanted parental involvement.
Joyce Zurkowski, the state’s assessment chief, said the panelists who determined the scores were chosen through a recruitment process by the department and testing vendor Pearson, and selected based on knowledge of content standards.
Said Durham: “I would rather have the first 100 people in the Denver phone book set these cut scores than these 28 people.”
Education Commissioner Robert Hammond suggested that before voting on the cut scores, the education department come back with thoughts and recommendations to address the board’s concerns. Zurkowski suggested a compromise — that the board accept the scores as provisional, which would allow the state to both move forward with preparing reports on students, school and districts and conduct a board-determined cut score validation process before the next administration of the tests.
Durham said he wasn’t interested in either. The board voted along what has become its new normal lines — Republicans Durham, Scheffel and Mazanec rejecting the scores, opposed by Republican Neal and Democrats Jane Goff and Angelika Schroeder.
