THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 29, 1996 TAG: 9602290285
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
State and local schools officials are investigating what may have been the improper preparation by a teacher of about 100 seventh-grade students for an important writing test this month.
The test was an open-ended essay administered to fourth, sixth and seventh graders across the state. The results were intended to be used as a baseline for evaluating how well schools are teaching writing under new state education policies.
Elizabeth City-Pasquotank Schools officials said one teacher at Elizabeth City Middle School may have tried to give her students an advantage on the test - which asked for an opinion about whether physical education should be required - by discussing that topic in class the day before the exam.
The actual test question, known as a prompt, was not given to students ahead of time, officials said.
``The teacher to our knowledge didn't tell kids what the prompt was,'' Superintendent Joe Peel said Tuesday. ``The person didn't do anything to be unethical or malicious. It was more naive.''
Peel and other officials declined to name the teacher, but several teachers at the middle school said they thought it was a veteran instructor.
Because nearly 100 students in the same ``team'' structure had 24 hours to think about what turned out to be the test question, their exam results could be in jeopardy. Testing officials in Raleigh were alerted quickly after the incident was discovered and are discussing the situation, Peel said.
Because the actual prompt was not released, officials were uncertain whether the tests would be ruled invalid.
``It's in a rather kind of gray area,'' Rita Collie, director of testing and accountability for the district, said Wednesday. ``We do not know if that is enough information to cause an invalidation.''
The possibility of their tests not counting was a blow for students, teachers and administrators at the middle school, which has emphasized writing instruction in math, science and social studies as well as communications classes and has performed well on previous tests.
``We had worked so hard from the beginning of school, and our kids were ready,'' Principal Diane Bradford said Wednesday. ``It was like there was this big balloon, and it just got popped.''
Bradford said she notified her superiors as soon as she found out about the incident. The issue was also discussed during a Feb. 19 faculty meeting, she said.
Ordinarily, statewide tests are given on the same day, which prevents information from getting out ahead of time. But the ice storm earlier this month canceled the original testing day, Feb. 6, in Elizabeth City-Pasquotank and several other districts.
The test was taken here on Feb. 13; some other districts delayed yet another week, officials said. The time differences allowed information about the prompt to spread by word of mouth among teachers and students from different districts.
``The snow days all across the state caused the whole writing test to get out of whack,'' Peel said. ``I'm sure this isn't the only incident of this sort that happened. The state should have canceled the writing test.''
State officials are still deciding what to do with what could be piles of questionable results from around the state, Collie said. Retaking the test statewide would probably be too expensive an option, she said.
``The state is actually looking at how they will handle entire districts,'' Collie said. ``If they gave it a week late, are we going to count any of their tests?
``I think they're going to have a real problem with using it as a baseline, because the people in Raleigh don't trust it.''
Tests such as the writing exam and multiple-choice end-of-grade tests have taken on new meaning under the state's ``New ABCs of Public Education,'' a plan to empower local districts and to hold them accountable for teaching students effectively.
State officials use the results of these tests to decide if teachers and principals are doing their jobs. That puts a lot of pressure on educators to come up with good numbers, officials said.
Local administrators are still considering how to deal with the teacher involved in this incident.
``It's something we take very seriously,'' Peel said. ``It's one of the dangers of high-stakes testing.''
Middle school teachers said this week that straight-up conduct was emphasized to them before the test. Many said they were shocked to learn what had happened.
``We were told that if there were any misconduct, it would probably cost us our job,'' one teacher said. ``A lot of people at school are hurting, and a lot are disappointed.''
Collie said teachers are given specific instructions about how to handle all the tests they administer.
``We provide a lot of training, but we don't always cover the what-ifs for every situation,'' Collie said. ``That's one of the reasons I'm deferring to the people in Raleigh.''
All officials emphasized a commitment to ensuring legitimate scores.
The merits of the Elizabeth City Middle School have been highlighted regularly in recent years. Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. visited a month ago to view the cutting-edge audio-visual and computer technology offered in the school.
The middle school is participating in a number of nationwide technology and educational programs, including one sponsored by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. And Bradford was regional principal of the year in 1995.
Bradford said she hoped the school would be judged on what it has done well and how it has handled the testing incident.
``I'm not interested in having outstanding scores and doing it in an unethical way,'' Bradford said.
Local officials said they would notify the public about the consequences of the incident when they hear from administrators in Raleigh. by CNB