Dayton School Practice Test Controversy

Scott Elliott:

And seventh graders knew that the square Coral drew was a rhombus because it had four sides.

The question is, how did they know?

In each case the students had seen these questions — or questions that were nearly identical — on practice tests they took the week before the school administered the Ohio Achievement Tests.

In all, a Dayton Daily News investigation found 44 questions on practice tests taken by City Day students that were identical or substantially the same as questions that appeared on the actual state exam they took just days later.

And when state report cards came out last year, huge gains in the percentage of students who passed the test helped propel the chronically underperforming school out of the state’s lowest rating category of “academic emergency.”

Posted by Jim Zellmer at February 5, 2007 6:10 AM
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