Utah state senator is mad the written portion of the Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence test was taken by students in February. The test was supposed to be an end-of-level test, taken at the end of the year.
“On the first of February, fifth graders were required to take end-of-level writing assessments,” said Senator Howard Stephenson. “That’s preposterous to say that February is end-of-level.”
Students in Utah took the writing portion of the SAGE test in February because graders needed time to hand-grade the test.
“Because it is hand-graded and it goes with the Language Arts grade they want the test scores to be out by the end of the year,” said Sarah Hancock, a fifth grade teacher at Garland Elementary School.
She said it was really stressful and frustrating for the students to take an end-of-year writing test half-way through the school year.
“no one felt like the kids were prepared,” Hancock said.
Stephenson also said the schools are using computer labs for end-of-level testing, which he thought should be used for student instruction instead.
The SAGE test is an adaptive test so it is administered on computers. The students also have to take practice tests on the computers as well.
“They go to the computer lab twice a week for a half an hour each,” Hancock said.
She said the practice tests sometimes have more than one right answer and students have to move things on the screen and place them in certain ways.
“The kids aren’t used to it at all, which is why we are trying to do all these practice tests,” Hancock said. “We spend at least two hours a week working on them.”
No comments:
Post a Comment