One goof — now schools’ reputations are at stake

Wrong test date means lost time, scramble for teachers, kids districtwide

Friday, Feb. 15, 2008 | 2 a.m.

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Nothing's average anymore for Clark County students (9-3-2004)
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Test dates could hurt year-round students (1-19-2004)

No Child Left Behind — Nevada Department of Education

At stake is each school’s academic standing in the eyes of the state and federal education departments.

The district’s official calendar, put out at the start of the academic year, had the wrong dates for the test that is used to determine whether students have made the “adequate yearly progress” required by federal law. The mistake went unnoticed until earlier this month, when state education officials brought it to the district’s attention.

Elementary and middle school principals were notified Feb. 5 that all answer sheets for the test have to be in by March 25. They had been told the deadline was April 25.

Making the testing period more problematic is spring break, March 15-24, effectively rendering the nine days leading up to the deadline useless.

Sue Daellenbach, testing director for the district, said she takes the blame for the mistake. “It was a human error,” she said. “A lot of people dropped the ball, but ultimately it’s my responsibility.”

It has left many schools scrambling to try to make time for more classroom instruction, after-school tutoring sessions and test preparation. That includes postponing field trips as well as pushing aside in-school activities for Nevada Reading Week, which was set to begin Feb. 21.

Third graders at Henderson’s Nate Mack Elementary School, for example, will have to hit the books instead of visiting the McCool Science Center at Frank Lamping Elementary School, said Principal Nancy Heavey.

Heavey recalls thinking the test period was a little later than usual when she first marked it on her calendar in the fall.

State law requires the tests to be given after 120 days of instruction, with 10 days’ leeway on either end of the range.

“I thought, ‘Wow, we’ve got a little extra time,’ ” Heavey said Thursday. “I didn’t go back and count the number of days, which a lot of us are kicking ourselves for now. If we had, we would have caught this a lot earlier.”

Heavey had planned to use the “extra” time to her students’ advantage. A few weeks ago she had her third, fourth and fifth grade teachers spent a day with a test preparation consultant. Together they “looked at specific students, specific state standards and how to use the time from now until the test to make sure kids had the skills,” Heavey said. “Three days later we found out about the new schedule and went, ‘Oh, man.’ ”

The pressure on teachers to have their students make adequate progress is already high enough without the added burden of losing a month’s instructional time, said Mary Ella Holloway, president of the Clark County Education Association. She has heard from teachers who say their game plans for the academic year have been left in the dust.

“Because of the mistake, there may be some areas and skills that won’t be covered in time for the testing,” Holloway said. “That might impact the scores.”

Schools that fail to make adequate progress for two consecutive years are labeled “in need of improvement,” while strong performance earns the title of “high achieving” or even “exemplary.” With each successive year on the “needs improvement” list a school faces increased sanctions that can include the removal of the principal.

J. Harold Brinley Middle School Principal Sharon Beatty is scheduling extracurricular workshops to help prepare her students for the earlier testing dates. Teachers will also do what they can to squeeze a few more lessons into the instructional day. The good news is that with testing out of the way earlier, teachers will have more time after spring break to look at individual student performance and delve deeper into the curriculum, Beatty said.

“It was an unfortunate error, but not anything we can’t live with,” she said.

At Lied Middle School it’s business as usual, said Principal Kimberly Bauman. Other than pushing back Nevada Reading Week activities, “everything is going on as normal,” Bauman said. “We have been focused all year long. We’re ready, 100 percent.”

But plenty of other educators are very worried about the effect of the test date mix-up, said Bill Hanlon, who runs the Regional Professional Development Center, created by the Legislature to provide teacher training. He has been fielding phone calls from worried teachers.

“But my belief on these tests has always been if you do your job all along, and teach your curriculum, everything else works itself out in the end,” he said.

Because the tests are given before the end of the academic year, it’s to be expected that some material won’t have been covered in depth yet, Hanlon said. He discourages teachers from “jumping ahead” to try to maximize the chances that their students will answer a few extra questions correctly.

“That’s the worst kind of teaching to the test,” Hanlon said. “There’s community pressure to have high scores. But I’d rather see high scores maintained over time, rather than a one-time spike.”

Emily Richmond can be reached at 259-8829 or at emily@lasvegassun.com.

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

By ZeddyBear

2/15/08 at 6:17 a.m.

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Another administrator error ---- so now we again will blame the teachers if the kids don't score well on these tests. It's so easy to blame them because they are on the front lines. And to the administrator who ultimately is responsible for this snafu.... well let's give her a big pay raise.... she's under a lot of pressure.
By frenchie

2/15/08 at 11:38 a.m.

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The basic fallacy of high stakes testing is that it ensures our students are learning. All I've ever seen in the classroom is stressed out teachers and stressed out students. This is a silly way to run an education system. It's time for America to stop the public shaming exercise known as "No Child Left Behind".
By teacher

2/16/08 at 6:32 a.m.

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"The public shaming exercise known as "No Child Left Behind" is a good way to describe it. I believe that this legislation was put forth at least partially, and possibly mostly, so that many schools must fail. It requires that special ed students perform as high on testing as regular students, and that 100% of students be proficient at grade level by 2014. These are ridiculous, impossible standards, unless the standards are made falsely, absurdly low. Therefore, the schools will be found lacking, and the government can take them over. No doubt there are cronies waiting for yet another government-to-business handout. This time it will be to those business owners with plans in hand to privately run schools, for profit. Let's hope a new administration will make this legislation into an example of how not to run government.
By Pricekid

2/16/08 at 6:44 p.m.

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The district's "Official" calender that was put out in the begining of the school year with the incorrect testing dates will go unnoticed until the begining of Febuary. Some 5 months later and leaving our teacher's just one month to prepare and give this test. Yet all Sue Daellenbach has to say is "it was a human error" oh but she will take the blame for it. It sounds to me that we are texting the wrong people here. Can no one see that 120 days requirement means to simply count the days out on the calender? Does no one know how to prove read something before it goes to printed. This testing is not new, they should know how to do this. Plus how can Bill Hanlon say that he feels if a teacher is doing a good job and not pushing the kids to answer a few more questions just to get a high score on the test that everything will work out in the end?!Is that not what the Federal Law expects? As I see it, it is NOT our teachers that disappoint us, it is the people who makes up this impossible task. They need to think this testing thing over. IF we are going to test our children on what they have learned throughout the year. Then lets do just that, test them at the end of the year and allow the teacher to teach their students all year long. That way no one is to blame if they can not fill out the calendar correctly for the new school year.
By mommykatt

2/24/08 at 1:30 p.m.

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The question I have is why are testing mastery of grade level skills at 120 days of instruction, when the school year consists of 180 days? How many college students could pass their finals only 2/3 of the way through a class?

Nevada wonders why we are so low in the list when it comes to education -- we suck!