An error on the state level has area school officials concerned after the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education declared statewide Algebra and English test scores taken last year invalid for yearly comparison purposes.
A release by Stacey Preis, deputy commissioner for the Division of Learning Services, stated End-of-Course exams, or EOCs, for Algebra I and English II will be removed due to an error by the state's assessment vendor. As a solution to the problem, she said 2017 Annual Performance Reports will be calculated using existing 2015 and 2016 data, plus the remaining data from 2017.
Local State Board of Education member Eddy Justice said the board has been aware of the issue "since day one," and finds the situation to be regrettable, as it makes the task of measuring progress even more difficult.
"One of the test forms was flawed and caused a deviation between form scores that was too large for acceptability," he said. "The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education decided because of this flawed test form, the results were not comparable to previous years when there were no flawed test forms."
Poplar Bluff R-1 Board of Education President John Scott believes the error has tainted the reputation of state testing.
"There is no confidence in the scoring. The government can't even get that right," he said, suggesting the problem is not just a vendor error, but a prime example of government overreach in the public school system.
"It hinders our teachers and students and doesn't reflect what our students are learning," Scott continued.
EOCs are used to track year-to-year progress and are also a significant factor in figuring a district's APR score, which determines whether or not a school district is accredited with or without distinction, or unaccredited. There are a number of factors contributing to the APR, however, test scores play a significant role.
Neelyville Superintendent Brad Hagood said he is concerned eliminating the English and Algebra EOC scores will not only have a negative impact on the district's APR in November, but could also hurt Neelyville's performance report for the next three years.
"When figuring APR, they look at the pattern of growth over a period of time," he said. "We won't have any scores this year in those particular areas so it will take three years to see a pattern."
Hagood anticipates the most noticeable change will be in math.
"We have several advanced 8th grade students taking Algebra I instead of typical 8th grade math," he said. "They also take the Algebra I EOCs and removing their test results means removing the scores of some of our brightest students."
Hagood said as a smaller school district, he thinks Neelyville will feel the impact resulting from a loss of scores more than larger schools based simply on the number of student test takers.
"If we lose 20 scores here, out of a group of 50 kids, that's a bigger difference than if a larger school loses the same number," he explained.
Hagood and Curriculum Director Heather Wells said cumulative math scores on the Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) have decreased since 8th graders have been permitted to take the Algebra I EOCs, which is why Hagood remains concerned.
"I'd say I'm pretty anxious to see what our APR scores are. It's not really comparing apples to apples, so we'll see," he said.
Poplar Bluff R-1 and other larger school districts shouldn't see as much of a discrepancy in scores between this year and last year because the pool is much larger, according to administrators at Poplar Bluff who also said the state has been using the vendor in question for multiple years, four or five, and is unsure exactly when things went wrong.
Further into her release, Preis said DESE expects more from its assessment vendors.
"The EOC vendor, Questar, has recently been purchased by and is now a subsidiary of Educational Testing Service..."
Preis said the state will not be billed for 2017-18 EOCs in English II and Algebra I up to the amount paid for those assessments in 2016-17.
The scoring issue has pushed back the release date of APR scores statewide. DESE said the information will become available to the public on Nov. 15.