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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Students Retake Test After Questions Compromised Salk Middle School Teacher’s Review For National Test Had Many Of The Same Questions

Standardized test results in social studies were invalidated for about 100 students at Salk Middle School because their teacher prepared them with questions similar to those on the actual test.

About 400 eighth-graders at Salk originally took the 40-minute social studies portion of the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills on Oct. 7. About 100 students had to retake another form of the test Jan. 4 after teacher Michael Holland told the school that the test may have been compromised, Principal Mary Haugen said.

This is the first time that Spokane School District 81 officials can recall canceling any results. Testing coordinator Joe Kinney said it hasn’t happened in the 21 years he’s been at the district.

Holland was disciplined but officials declined to say how. He referred all questions to Haugen.

“Yes, the teacher was disciplined,” Haugen said. “It’s something that I believe was not in any way done maliciously. On the teacher’s part, it was a genuine matter of poor judgment.”

Haugen described Holland as a “computer nut” who set up a computer bank of quiz questions that students answered weeks before the standardized test was given.

When they saw the actual test, several students noticed that some of the questions appeared to be the same as those given on the earlier quiz. Holland also noticed the problem and told superiors, Haugen said.

“My gut-level feeling is that this individual made a genuine mistake,” Haugen said. “Who knows whether (the questions) were from a year ago, two years ago. Apparently, they stuck in his mind and when he was building a review, they came out.”

The students who had to retake the test scored at the 68th percentile on the first test. Their average score dropped by five points after the January tests were hand-scored at the district office, Kinney said.

Although district and school officials say they learned about the testing problem in October, parents weren’t told until later.

Haugen sent parents a letter Dec. 30 informing them that their children would have to retake the test because of a testing administration error.

Several parents said they already knew about the problem. One mother, who found the testing snafu humorous, said her daughter told her about it.

“He said, ‘You’re having a quiz tomorrow,”’ she said. “They were given the answers. The next day they took the quiz but not the (actual) test. Some of the answers that were on the actual test were the same as the ones on the quiz.”

The test given in January was an alternate form of the test that’s been given statewide to eighth-graders since 1991.

Students in fourth, eighth and 11th grade are required to take a standardized test picked by the state.

Since 1991, students in fourth and eighth grade have taken the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills. The test is the same every year.

The teachers see the test questions because they pass out the tests and read the instructions to students. But many of the tests are too lengthy to copy, Haugen said. Social studies is one of the shorter tests.

“But (teachers) also understand that they have an ethical responsibility in terms of not writing the questions down,” Haugen said.

Besides the ethical considerations, it’s against state law.

Haugen said she was proud of the school’s performance on the tests and the response of the school and the district to the testing error.

“I really believe there have probably been some instances in other districts where schools haven’t been as forthcoming as in School District 81,” she said.

The standardized tests are given every October and actually reflect what students have learned in the years before the test, Haugen said. Some teachers may perceive the tests differently.

“There has been frankly an overemphasis on test scores on the national achievement tests,” she said. “Some teachers do feel under a great deal of pressure and feel that how a student performs is a reflection on them.”