A challenge over the ACT college readiness exam ended in stalemate of opinions from a college professor skeptical about standardize testing and the Iowa's top education official who believes it's an important measure.
University of Kentucky professor Scott McLeod in February challenged Gov. Terry Branstad and state lawmakers to take the ACT after the governor called for all Iowa high school juniors to take either the ACT or SAT exams.
He didn't get any takers, but Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass said he'd take the ACT, and dared McLeod to do the same.
McLeod, an educational leadership professor, said his goal was to get an up-close look at the ACT. Sixty-one percent of the state's graduating seniors took the test last year.
Glass said they were taking the ACT for fun, but discussion about college and career readiness is real,
The two men sat down on Monday at Roosevelt High School in Des Moines and took the four-hour test. Both finished with scores that mirrored their performance as high school students, The Des Moines Register (http://dmreg.co/IWgb9M ) reported after the results were released.
Glass received a composite score of 27 out of 36, landing him in the 88th percentile of test-takers. McLeod finished in the 99th percentile with a composite score of 34. Iowa's average statewide composite school for students in the Class of 2011 was 22.3. The national average was 21.1.
"I think it was a really good experience, our goal was to learn from this," Glass said. "Having been two decades or more from when we last took an assessment of this form, it's a good experience to get a refresher on what we're asking our students to do."
Glass and McLeod, who both have doctorates, said they found the test challenging. It includes English, reading, science and math tests...
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Professor Bests Iowa Education Official in ACT
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As good as 88th and 99th precentile might be, our current assessment model in Kentucky (KPREP) would actually penalize their respective schools if applied to post secondary education level due to a lack of growth since their performance "mirrored their performance as high school students".
Just incase you haven't been keeping up with KPREP assessment, much less how it will potentially impact your individual evaluation, it is no longer good enough to just score well but you must also show annual growth of students compared to similarly performing students from the year before. As a result about 40% of all student will each year be considered not making adequate annual growth. Good luck folks, because about I don't see how anyone is going to be able to keep their job at either a high scoring school or a low scoring school.
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