Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon high schools will no longer be judged by testing their sophomores.  Federal officials have said they’ll accept Oregon’s proposal – to judge high schools on the progress of their juniors, instead.

Rob Manning reports.

Oregon used to want sophomores to earn a “sim” or Certificate of Initial Mastery.  Then, it made some sense to use 10th grade testing for state and federal accountability.   

But now the CIM is no more.
 
Regardless, McMinnville High School principal, Kris Olsen, says 10th grade test results aren’t the right way to judge a high school.

For instance, he says only advanced sophomores were really getting all the material that’s on the math test.


Kris Olsen: “And even those kids, there are some Algebra Two concepts that they don’t even get exposed to until late May, or early June. So, in reality, they haven’t had the opportunity to be exposed to all the different standards.” 
 


Olsen says moving the “accountability” snap shot from 10th to 11th grade could improve school-wide results by five percentage points, or more. 

The new numbers come out after next school year. Students shouldn’t notice a change.  They typically take the tests repeatedly from 9th through 11th grade.

Rob Manning, OPB News.