High-Stakes Test Results, Low-Speed Delivery

By Jay Mathews
Thursday, October 26, 2006

Dear Extra Credit :

My husband and I are flummoxed about why it takes the Montgomery County public schools so long to distribute individual student scores on high-stakes testing. To date, we have not received the scores of our children's Maryland School Assessment test (grade 5), or High School Assessment test (algebra). Yet friends who teach in Carroll County inform me that all high-stakes testing results (HSAs, MSAs) for their students go home in the end-of-the-year report card (sent home on the last day of school).

I asked a teacher at our local elementary school, and she said that they do indeed have the data. That is why all of the lovely bar graphs are posted in the school lobby about a month after the MSAs and HSAs are taken. They even have individual student data. It is just that in Montgomery County, the data have not been analyzed and "massaged" for distribution to parents.

I was told that one reason we don't get scores sooner is because "there are so many scores to process, and it is hard to write a computer program to create student reports."

I was told by another MCPS teacher friend that I could go to my children's schools and "ask for their scores." But when I went to the schools and asked, I was told it wasn't "in a form that would be helpful." I pushed for what that meant and was told that I would have no data to use for comparing my child's scores. (Yet the school, school system and state data were available -- what else do I need?) It strikes me that this policy is counterproductive and deceitful.

We can read (either in The Post, the Gazette or a local principal's newsletter) how our school did as a whole. The individual student's information is available but not distributed.

The school system apparently has enough data to assign my child to "preliminary" reading and math groups every year based on ability. But there is not enough information to release it to parents? And they wonder why parents are so pushy at the start of every year to get information!

For our high school student (who will attend Wootton High School), this is even more frustrating. We have no doubts that she passed the algebra HSA. She got straight A's in the class. But it would be nice to see at least one graduation requirement ticked off the list.

Do you have any insight into why it takes so long for parents to get specific, personal test scores and other information? I'd love to hear the rationale of the Montgomery school system, especially given that a school system with fewer personnel resources manages to write a computer program to print individual reports in a timely manner.

When the school system and/or the state wonder why parents and students don't seem to particularly care or take the high-stakes testing seriously, it could certainly be linked to the fact that we receive the scores six months or more after our students take them. Most of these tests were given before the fourth quarter of the previous school year. If parents and kids have a ho-hum attitude, maybe it is because we don't get a timely analysis. I would note that the PSAT results from tests taken in October are supposed to be delivered to the parents before Thanksgiving.

Deb Barry

Rockville

You raise an important point that a major study of parents and the No Child Left Behind law recently discussed. Late results can hurt the entire movement to improve schools. But first, here is how school district spokesman Brian Edwards explained the difficulties of getting so many results back to so many parents in a district with nearly 140,000 students:

"The files we received from the Maryland State Department of Education in June and August contain errors. Students are included with incorrect or missing names, schools, grades or IDs. All of these errors have to be corrected before the information can be sent to parents. In addition, MCPS has a higher mobility rate compared to other districts, which means that we have a greater number of our students who move around. That makes it more difficult to match up students with their scores and to confirm that we have the right information.

"It takes less time to complete all these tasks in smaller districts, but the sheer size of MCPS means that these processes take longer. For MCPS, we have to deal with hundreds of student records that need to be examined and corrected. Some corrections are straightforward and easy to fix, but some, such as students with mismatched student IDs and names, take time to review and correct.

"We understand the parents' desire to get information quickly. We want to get it out quickly as well, but it is more important that we send out the right information.

"At the high school level, High School Assessment scores for algebra, government and biology were released at the end of August and English 2 was released in mid-September. We are now cleaning and checking these files. This information will be communicated to parents as soon as possible. However, it is impossible to distribute HSA scores with report cards as we don't even have that information when the final report cards are mailed out."

The school district has a difficult job, to be sure, but this is an area where faster processing would be very beneficial. The public-interest law network Appleseed recently released a major study that concluded that too many parents don't receive clear and timely information about their children and their schools.

Under No Child Left Behind, if parents don't get the test scores in time, they are less likely to be able to use their transfer or free tutoring rights under the law. And if we are going to spend all this time and money assessing students, it doesn't make sense to make students and parents wait six months for the results.

Please send questions and responses -- along with your name, e-mail or postal address and phone number -- to Extra Credit, The Washington Post, 51 Monroe St., Suite 500, Rockville, Md. 20850. Or e-mailextracredit@washpost.com.