Story of the Day 5/6/2011 #2

In Indiana, students are required to pass a couple of assessment tests to earn a high school diploma. Students that do not pass all of the subjects get a “certificate of attendance” which is very useful when applying to be a greeter at Wal-Mart.

The exam used to be one multi-day test that was given to students at the end of 10th grade. There was an English section and a math section. You could pass both or neither or one. If you failed either section, you had several opportunities to take it again- and your school had to provide some specialized instruction on how to take the test…I mean to get your skills up to speed so that you could pass.

More recently, that test was divided up into parts- and they have added a science section. Now, the parts are called “ ECAs” for End of Course Assessment. The idea was that if students took the tests right after finishing the course it covered (Algebra for math, 10th grade English for English, Biology for science) it might help more students to pass than testing some kids the year before they take that course, and other kids a year after they finished and no longer remember the exact formulae to find the area of a trapezoid pyramid.

The tests are long. Each ECA is given over two days—section 1, on the first day, and section 2 on the second day. And they change the school schedule so that the students have longer class periods to take them. AND the teachers teach how to take these tests (practicing writing essays on assorted subject, reviewing formulas, repeating vocabulary terms) for a couple of weeks, in advance. And then the kids take the tests.


This week, Sarah took her English ECA. She took part 1 the first day, and she took part 2 the second day.

The first day, when she was done, she did as she had been instructed and raised her hand and waited for a staff member to come over, make sure the exam was completed, and then the staff person would click the button to submit the student’s score and have it sent to the company that grades it. So, the staff member came over, looked at her work, and clicked the button, and waited. And waited, and waited. After 15 minutes, he called over an administrator. The administrator said, “Oh, the computer is slow.” So they waited, and waited, and waited some more. Finally, the administrator called someone from the IT department.

When the IT guy showed up, he looked at the computer and turned it off.

Sarah was upset.
This didn’t seem like the most intelligent thing to do, turning the computer off before there was any indication that the information had been saved, but the adults told her that it would show up as completed, tomorrow, and there was no problem.

Except that “tomorrow” (which was today), when she completed section 2 and the staff member clicked the button, the computer message came back that section 2 had been completed, but section 1 had not been done.

The man then asked Sarah if she had been absent, yesterday, when the first part was given.
“No, don’t you remember, you had a problem with my test, yesterday?”

He remembered.

In the end, Sarah was told that they would contact the company that does the ECA exams for the state and they would recover the missing information.

However, Sarah knew better. I knew better, and I am sure that you know better.

So, next week, Sarah will be taking the first part of the ECA, again.

Neither of us find this reassuring.