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COMMENT By Bob Weaver
How will the West Virginia public know how their schools are performing?
Well, for at least a year, they won't.
In the real world it would be a difficult decision to accept, but in this case with WV's educational bureaucracy, bigger than New York state, will slide right on by.
They say it's a matter of just getting it right.
The West Virginia Board of Education will not use test scores to determine teacher and school performance grades for at least one year and voted to relax some of its testing policies while the state transitions to a new set of standardized assessments.
The department has been criticized for its handling of the transition, which started last year when the WESTEST was converted to an online-only test, a move that was the source of many problems across the state.
The ratings were delayed last year by several months.
The issuing of an A-F rating to WV schools has been put on hold. It would have replaced a rating system previously given to public schools, success, transitional, support, etc.
"The school designations will not be released for the 2014-15 school year because of the lack of comparable student data. More specifically, a reason for the waiver on the A-F system is because comparable student assessment data will not be available to calculate student growth," according to Liza Cordeiro,
Executive Director of Communication of the WV Department of Education.
"Comparable data will not be available because students will be taking the SMARTER Balanced assessment in spring 2015. In 2014, students took the WESTEST. Experts tell us that calculating student growth between the WESTEST and SMARTER is not a reliable calculation, especially for high stakes accountability," said Corderio.
"This year the student achievement data will be available to teachers and parents for instructional purposes but will not be used to calculate a publically released A-F school accountability grade."
"The difference is that schools will use the internal information for only instructional and diagnostic purposes," concluded Corderio.
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