Posted on: Wednesday, July 14, 2004
Teacher test score flaws result in failing grades
Advertiser Staff and News Services
Mistakes in scoring an examination used by Hawai'i and 17 other states for licensing teachers caused more than 4,000 people who should have passed to receive failing grades, the Educational Testing Service said.
Seventy-four Hawai'i test takers were affected.
The failing grades resulted from an essay portion of the test being graded too harshly, a company spokesman in Princeton, N.J., said yesterday. He said he did not know if the error caused any of the applicants to be rejected for teaching jobs.
Greg Knudsen, spokesman for the state Department of Education, said the failing scores could have affected the way the applicants' probation was calculated, but it is unlikely any were turned down for a job on the basis of the test score.
The DOE commonly hires trained teachers who still need to complete the licensing requirements, provided they demonstrate "they are pursuing and completing full certification," Knudsen said.
Consequently, the company's error is unlikely to affect the DOE's hiring of hundreds of teachers for the coming year.
ETS began contacting those affected last weekend and said it will refund nearly a half-million dollars worth of fees and materials costs.
"We sincerely apologize for this unfortunate situation," company spokesman Tom Ewing said.
"We realize that teachers and prospective teachers are relying on this as part of their licensure procedure. We're taking steps to ensure that similar instances can't happen in the future."
This is the second time in two months that a Mainland testing company has reported problems on standardized tests that affected Hawai'i. In May, Texas-based Harcourt Assessment Inc. reported errors in the Hawai'i Content and Performance Standards tests that students took this past spring. Company and DOE officials have said that no scores were affected by the errors.
At issue in the teachers' test is the Praxis Principles of Learning and Teaching for Grades 7 to 12, officially named Praxis P.L.T. 7-12. The errors occurred from January 2003 to April 2004 in eight separate instances involving about 40,000 test-takers, Ewing said.
He said ETS officials noticed lower scores than usual on two occasions when the test was administered.
"There were explanations for those lower scores that seemed to make sense, such as the ability of the candidates at different times of the year, the change in the size of the (test-taking) population that can sometimes cause scores to be lower, things like that," he said.
"Upon further investigation, we determined those lower scores were more a result of the short essay portion being graded more stringently," he said. "When you use human scorers, they're trained very specifically on how to grade and what to look for. There's always that variable of human decision."
He said the company will reimburse the candidates for the $115 test fee and for materials they used to prepare for it.
The 2,400 candidates who retook the tests because they thought they had failed will also be reimbursed for the cost of subsequent attempts. Ewing said 1,250 received passing scores after repeating the test.
The company began calling candidates who were affected by the errors last weekend to say they had indeed passed the exam. It has set up a toll-free number — (800) 205-2626 — for further information.
In addition to Hawai'i, states that use the test are Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and West Virginia. The U.S. Department of Defense also uses the test.
Staff writer Treena Shapiro and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
