Despite errors, state releases Stanford 9 results
By Sarah Garrecht Gassen and Hipolito R. Corella
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Stanford 9 test results have been released - but officials warn that the results are only preliminary and mistakes have already been identified.
The Arizona Department of Education had to release the scores by July 1 to comply with state law; this year, they're being released July 2 because the first is a Sunday.
Flowing Wells Unified School District has already identified a mistake: scores of about 400 ninth-graders who took the test this spring were not included in the district's scores, said Superintendent John Pedicone.
The district is working with testing company Harcourt Educational Measurement to get the correct scores by the end of next week, said Tom Collins, spokesman for the Arizona Department of Education.
Pedicone said the district found the error after suspecting that the scores reported for its freshman class appeared too low.
He said the data reflected only the scores of students in alternative education programs.
Some charter school scores are also incorrect, and a "handful" of districts around the state have called the education department to report errors or missing data, Collins said.
"We're working with Harcourt to get those things fixed, but the situation remains that this is exactly why we consider the data we plan to release on Monday as preliminary," Col-lins said.
It appears the problem is with calculating and reporting total school or district scores, not the test itself, he said.
District leaders at Tucson Unified School District have declined to respond publicly to the preliminary test data the state has released.
"We'd like time to check for the accuracy of the data and be able to do a meaningful analysis of the data," said Toni Cordova, a TUSD spokeswoman.
The state Department of Education will check and analyze the test data and plans to issue a verified report in mid-July, Collins said.
* Contact Sarah Garrecht Gassen at 573-4117 or at sgassen@azstarnet.com.
* Contact Hipolito R. Corella at 573-4191 or at corella@azstarnet.com.
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