Half of the standardized tests at a D.C. public high school went missing last spring, and with them any official explanation.
Now, parents at Northeast’s long-struggling Spingarn Senior High are left wondering not only how their children performed, but if the school made any academic progress at all after six years of near-straight failure. They also would like to know who is to blame.
“We’ve gotten about six different stories,” said James Long, the school’s PTA president.
“I was told they’d e-mail me the information,” said Rosalind Lyle, who served last year as the school’s parent coordinator. No message had arrived by Friday evening.
The test, called the DC-CAS, is supposed to be given to all students in third through eighth grades, and to 10th graders. The results are used to determine if a school has made adequate progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Of the 49 percent of students who did receive scores at Spingarn, none scored at the advanced level. About 20 percent scored “proficient” in reading, while 13 percent scored similarly in math. The remaining students scored “basic” or below.
If schools languish year after year, they can be subject to sanctions such as a staff overhaul and takeover by reform organizations. Six schools, including Anacostia Senior High, faced such comprehensive changes this year.
The most important thing is for “someone [to] account for what happened to those scores,” Lyle said.
Erin McGoldrick, D.C. Public Schools’ chief of data and accountability, said the issue would be handled by Mayor Adrian Fenty’s office.
Mafara Hobson, Fenty’s spokeswoman, said it would be handled by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.
Chad Colby, spokesman for State Superintendent Kerri Briggs, said by e-mail, “We’re looking into it.”
Later, Briggs had no comment.
The tests have disappeared once before, officials said. In 2007, all of the tests for Eastern High School vanished. Official records of the school’s progress leave 2007 off of the chart.
Jennifer Calloway, spokeswoman for D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, said the schools’ testing company, CTB-McGraw Hill, and the superintendent’s office informed D.C. Public Schools of the missing tests in late June.
Spingarn staff claimed to have submitted all of the tests to McGraw Hill, and McGraw Hill searched but didn’t find any unscored stacks, Calloway said.
“We’re currently working with [the state superintendent] to determine the appropriate next steps,” she said.
