PACT reforms changing the way South Carolina’s students are evaluated should win final approval today from the House before moving to the Senate for consideration.
The new test is expected to be easier to grade, with scores accessible to teachers within days.
“When teachers get the test back, they’ll know exactly where the student is,” the Landrum Republican said.
The proposed law calls for the state to pay for students to take practice tests at least twice annually. Most school districts already give such tests, usually done on computers, to give teachers immediate feedback, but the state covers only part of the cost.
More importantly, it sounds like new standards would put South Carolina in line with other states. Since the creation of No Child Left Behind, South Carolina educators have claimed the state’s test is one of the most challenging, putting us at a disadvantage compared with other states.
The legislation would change the scoring labels. Students today are judged as either “below basic,” “basic,” “proficient” and “advanced,” terms derived from a national testing system.
The state considers “basic” — defined as minimally prepared for the next grade — a passing score. The U.S. Education Department judges schools solely on students scoring “proficient” and “advanced.”
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Under the proposal, grading terms would change to “exemplary,” “met” and “not met.” “Met” would be equivalent to doing work at grade level for federal proficiency standards.
A few other changes we found interesting:
• A reading assessment and readiness test for first and second graders will be replaced with language arts and math tests.
• Achievement awards for improving schools will factor in graduation rates, instead of dropout rates.
• Teacher specialists who are currently required at failing schools as mentors for teachers will now be an option that an external review team can recommend.
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