According to State School Board member cost of SAGE test is too high

The high cost of the standardized test called Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence administered to students in April and May has one Utah School Board member concerned.

“We are spending an enormous amount of money, way above what we expect a standardized test to tell us,” said Terryl Warner, Utah State School Board District One member.

The state of Utah worked with American Institutes for Research to create the SAGE test in order to align with House Bill 15, which was passed by Utah Legislation in 2012. The bill required public and charter schools to assess students by adaptive testing, which was to be implemented by the school year 2014-2015.  

The original contract amount with AIR was $40 million, but three amendments were added, increasing the contract amount to be up to $47.3 million over a five year contract period.

“That is a lot of money, so we don’t have a big bank of test questions,” Warner said.

The test questions were created and then fielded by parents, teachers, administrators, professors and committees, who reviewed the questions for Utah, Warner said.

Warner works as a victims advocate at the Cache County Attorney’s Office, which she said provided her with an alternatative view about high-stakes standardized tests.  

“I deal with a lot of kids going through a lot of things,” Warner said. She has witnessed cases of domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse.

“Kids are going through difficult times and the idea that we would put so much pressure on a high stakes standardized test makes absolutely no sense to me,” Warner said.

An assessment assistant at Cache County School District thinks the test will be worth it.

“Regardless of whether we are with SAGE or another form of testing, there will always be a cost involved,” Robyn Hedgecock said.

There are multiple tests including math, English language arts and science. English language arts includes writing, reading, language and listening.

“I think as time goes on they will be teaching students to write a certain way with correct writing standards,” Hedgecock said.

Cache County School District scored the highest in the state in 2014. “It was the initial year, so it put a pressure on us to test well this year,” Hedgecock said. “We started switching to the new core in 2012-2013. I suspect that is why our students have done so well.”