Greenville schools hurt by delay in PACT scores

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Greenville schools hurt by delay in PACT scores By Jason Zacher EDUCATION WRITER jzacher@greenvillenews.com

As teachers in fourth through ninth grades prepare to return to school next week, they won't know exactly where their kids stand.

Sure, they'll know about each student's most recent grades, school work and other teachers' comments. But scores from the definitive measure of student success in South Carolina -- the Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test -- won't be back until October.

A computer hardware failure at the offices of Data Recognition Corp., a Minnesota-based company that's grading the tests, caused the scores to be delayed from the mid-June promise date.

Susan Engeleiter, president of Data Recognition, would not comment on the delay.

The company purchased a new computer scoring machine that was supposed to allow it to process the 28 truckloads of test papers by June, state education officials said. The new machine was designed to cut the binding off the test booklets and split the multiple-choice and essay pages. A computer then was supposed to score the multiple-choice part and scan in the essays and send them to people who would grade them.

Because the scoring machine failed, the company could not even start scoring the tests.

Under the contract with the company, the state can levy a fine of up to $25,000 for the delay -- a small portion of the more-than-$6-million fee.

State Department of Education spokesman Jim Foster said a decision on a fine will be made when the scores are returned. The job is so enormous, the state could not score the tests itself without significant cost to the state, he said.

Meanwhile, the delay in scores is hurting students across the state, educators say.

Schools use PACT scores to determine which elementary and middle schoolchildren need extra assistance. The 1998 Education Accountability Act says students who fail the PACT must have "academic assistance plans" -- agreements between parents, students and teachers on how to improve the student's performance. Starting next year, students who fail the PACT could be required to repeat a grade.

At Greenview Elementary, Principal Andrew Jackson said the biggest problem is knowing which students need to be placed in special programs. The most recent PACT scores are from spring 1999 -- 16 months ago. Some students may have improved and done well on last spring's tests, while others who did well in 1999 may have fallen on the 2000 test.

"We have almost no idea where these kids are," Jackson said. "We can evaluate these kids all year, but it's the test that ultimately counts."

The PACT isn't the sole determinant of whether a student will be held back, but it is an important indicator under state guidelines.

Teacher observations are what Woodland Elementary in Greer will use until the PACT scores come back. Principal Wanda Tollison said the observations are not the best way to evaluate the students, but it's all they have. PACT scores can pinpoint specific areas of weakness that are more difficult to identify through routine tests, educators say.

"It concerns me because I think we could make better decisions if we had all of the information from the beginning," Tollison said. "We won't let (the delay) inhibit or delay what we do."

According to Foster, such delays should be minimized in the future. The state is thinking of asking the company to score the multiple-choice part of the test first and send those scores back first, leaving the more complicated parts of the test that must be hand-graded to be returned later. The portions of the test scored first will give principals an idea of which children need help, he said.

Even if that is achieved, the snafu has made some school officials skeptical of placing so much emphasis on one source of information about student performance.

"We cannot rely on that test to tell us where our students stand," Jackson said. "From now on, we'll have to use everything we can find."

http://www.greenvillenews.com/news/14080800.htm

-- Doris (reaper1@mindspring.com), August 08, 2000


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