An Oklahoma school gives the state exams a failing grade

Wednesday, April 13th 2005, 11:07 am

By: News On 6

An Osage County school gives the state exams a failing grade. The tests are supposed to measure what students are learning, but a school in Osage County says itâ€™s "the tests" that don't measure up.

News on 6 reporter Ashli Sims says thousands of students across the state are taking the Oklahoma Core Curriculum tests this week. Their job is to find the right answers, but a few students ended up finding the testing company's mistakes.

9-year-old Franklin Wootan was working hard on his state math test when he did a double-take. "I was doing this question and I turned the page and I raised my hand for Miss Gates. And I told Miss Gates that these two questions were the same." Franklin's teacher told him to keep working. But after testing was over, the principal discovered the nine-year-old was right.

Woodland principal Bobby Simma: "Repeat page 25 and 25. Skip 27 and 28 and go to page 29." And Franklin's test wasn't the only one with a mistake. Principal Bobby Simma says another classmate complained of the same thing and he also found one of the extra tests also had the same problem. â€œWell thatâ€™s about ten percent of our tests. Then, I'm thinking these are in 3rd grade classrooms all over the state of Oklahoma, ten percent, possibly, maybe more are no good?"

A third-grader spotted a mistake the testing company missed and state school superintendent Sandy Garrett says they're going to pay for it. Harcourt Assessment has a $5-million contract with the state of Oklahoma for testing. As part of that contract, they can get penalized financially for mistakes. Bobby Simma: "I think they ought to send some of that to my third-graders."

Although Bobby Simma says he's proud of his students, he's worried about the integrity of the tests. These test scores are very important, because they determine whether a school will be labeled low-performing. "When you have a test that's flawed it kind of screws the whole thing up."

Ashli Sims talked with a representative from the Harcourt testing company Wednesday. They say this is an "isolated anomaly", effecting only 6 booklets that they know of, out of more than 40,000.

The News on 6 checked with Union and Tulsa Public Schools and so far they haven't had any test troubles, but this is only the second day of testing for many schools.