Alaska's "High School Graduation Qualifying Examination" (HSGQE): Web Resources Page:

Development and Implementation (1998 - 2003)

Claudia Krenz, Ph.D. (datafriend @ gmail-.-com)

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Click on a link to your right to go to that section. The text in this file is organized sequentially by these links (with the URLs mentioned in text organized alphabetically in the Bibliography). The first two links to the right are before the present paragraph, the rest, in order, after it: this first section looks at "accountability" as defined by the NCLB. The second section describes the HSGQE's development, official definition, different administrations, student performance, and what little's known about the pre-2002 administrations. Issues common to test development are illustrated with the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), required there since 1990--to overview the testing process and highlight issues (most certainly not to suggest that Texas sets an example to emulate)--and what might have been learned.

Post-NCLB: Post-Local Control The single nationwide east-coast database Letter to the gov Alaska summary Nikiski Elementary: Ode to a School that Worked Spring 2002 Scores Retrospectively Pre-NCLB: Local Control Alaska's HSGQE (development, administration, and performance). What was known about the tests Where were we? Earlier: Outside Constructing the TAAS, living with the TAAS Lessons from other states What could have been learned   Letters to Students   Author Note   Footnotes   Bibliography

While NCLB leaves the states free to establish their own content and performance standards for their own students, the U.S. Department of Education (USED) has various means of influencing said content. In one example, in 2005, one state, Utah, openly defied USED: USED Secretary Spellings called Utah state legislators names and threatened to cut funding for its neediest schools.

"The letter  warned that 'the consequences of enacting and 
implementing this bill would be so detrimental to students in Utah'
 .... In the letter's 25-line third paragraph, Mrs. Spellings warned 
that the   department probably would cut off at least $76 million 
in federal funds this year for low-income school districts and 
teacher training" (Archibald, G., Washington Times, 20 April 2005).
Secretary Spellings is also 	quoted as saying that "Under the state 
test, 74 percent of white eighth-graders and 47 percent of Hispanics were 
reported 'proficient or advanced' in math, while just 34 percent of white 
and 7 percent of Hispanic eighth-graders were 'proficient or advanced' on 
the NAEP math test."

The Secretary of Education's threats were quite real: As a Utah newspaper put it, the day the state legislature rebelled against the NCLB

The Secretary's argument was "one heck of a good one:" Comparing percentages of 8th grade Utah students proficient on the federal National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and Utah's own state achievement test scores (Utah called its the "UPASS"; Alaska, the "HSGQE") is possible since test scores are only numbers. Comparing scores on tests that have never been standardized to each other--and are not necessarily even measuring the same types of achievement (or have the same definitions of "proficiency")--however makes no sense: There are so many possible explanations for the observed differences in percentages reported on the two tests that it's impossible to single out a particular one: what would be a wonder would be if the scores had been the same!

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Alaska Summary

In 1998, the Alaska State Legislature passed its "Quality Schools Initiative," compared to most states in the continental U.S., Alaska students were doing well compared to their counterparts in the other states. Click here to a sorted list showing percents of 8th graders proficient on the National Assessment of Educational Progress' math test (the closest the US had to gold standard or way of evaluating student achievement levels across the country. They were certainly doing better than students in California and Texas, home states of the whining oil execs who convinced the Alaska leg that its "work force " wasn't up to becoming good employees. I don't think the leg noticed that its students were doing better before it decided to inflict accountability testing on real students in real time.

Accountability Testing in Alaska under Tony. This page is a compilation of links about educational testing in Alaska since 1998 and implementation of the "Quality Schools Initiative" from an educational testing and measurement perspective. Believing such exams should be subject to public scrutiny--call it "sunshine"--is not synonymous w/ the position that test scores tell us everything. There is a middle ground between the abyss of assuming no multiple-choice test can ever measure anything relevant or worthwhile--and the positivist glory heights of assuming the tests we use measure what we want them to measure and so there is no need to examine empirical data about test reliability and validity. Consider also the example of the phrase "scientifically valid and reliable" that peppers the pages of nclb.gov and used.gov: the phrase has it exactly wrong. It is easy to imagine reliable tests that are not valid (an easy example being measuring height when you're interested in hearing) but not the opposite: reliability--and there are several ways to estimate it--is a necessary but not sufficient condition for validity. It is, as Donald Campbell wrote, "the role of methodology to chart the course between naive credulity and inert skepticism." Alaska was one of the last states to implement standards-based reforms: the leg passed a law, as had most other States earlier, mandating that schools a) administer a battery of tests to students [3 partial days/academic year for the testing alone] and b) aggregate those scores over local schools to hold each "accountable." This "accountability testing" was on top of what has always normally occurred in the classroom (the typically enormous lag between testing and scoring made pedagogical use of these scores unlikely). Students took CTB tests of unknown merit (insofar as of unknown relevance to state-articulated performance objectives); their scores were aggregated over individual local schools and made public, typically on the web. Here's a 1) sorted list of how the other states compared to Alaska in degree of accountability testing in 1998. Two years before the leg enacted the Quality School's Initiative, Alaska's students had scored higher on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) than students in the home states of the oil execs who convinced the leg that Alaska's students were insufficiently educated. Specifically, the percentage proficient and above on the NAEP math exceeded CA's and TX's by about a decile: Thirty % of AK's 8th graders--compared to 21% of TX's and 17% of CA's--scored "proficient" on the NAEP math test (psychometrically the closest the U.S. had to a "gold standard" in measuring student achievement). Here's a 2) sorted list of how the other states compared to AK, TX, and CA in % proficient on NAEP 8th grade math in 1996. In summary, the first list shows that in 1998 Alaska ranked low in degree of standards implementation (and so is at the top of that list). The second shows that in 1996 Alaska ranked relatively high in math achievement (and so is at the bottom of that list). A state that didn't recognize the caliber of its own students--used whatever the oil execs said as its litmus test--wouldn't and didn't ask whether implementing such a testing program--often described w/ phrases like "standards-based reforms" and "high-stakes testing" and above all "accountability"--was a wise move, whatever the caliber of its students. Had the AK leg looked, it might have noticed, from correlating scores on two variables--degree of accountability testing grade (as assigned each state by EWW) with % proficient on 8th-grade math (as assigned by the NAEP)--the following Pearson product-moment correlation: 3) -.39. This statistically significant correlation is in the *wrong* direction insofar as the accountability testing model would predict that imposing its reforms enhanced, increased, or accelerated achievement. Had the leg concluded, based on a single statistical correlation that testing was so inimical to achievement that it should be abolished, I would have considered them foolish. Sort of like I consider them foolish for never questioning the link between the state's articulated performance objective--also a gold standard--and the tests that purportedly measure them--never insisted on examining empirical data from its test publisher pertaining to test reliability and validity ("idiots" is perhaps too strong; "innumerates" certainly is not--and "spongiform encephalopathy" comes to mind). The current debacle is that the class of 04 must pass a test which AK's education department says is so flawed that the state has changed test publishers (click here to read what DRC, the new testing contractor, has to say about itself: whatever the benefits of changing publishers--real values like more flexible scheduling and rapid scoring--so much dust will be raised that visibility--the chance to watch the as yet unfolding spectacle--is guaranteed decreased). Reason suggests that resource or time consumption is an aspect of accountability testing that should be considered (student time both being tested and testing prepared--in Alaska, originally at the 3rd, 6th, 8th, and 10th through 12th grades--times teacher time subtracted from what would otherwise have been spent in instructional activity--at the least time for some unique and wonderful Alaska history lessons). But reason isn't operative in a logical positivist state like Alaska. Maybe that's the reason for the "brain drain" (what state demographers call 40% of the state's grads leaving the state never to return). Accountability Testing in Alaska under Frank. The national NCLB law is based on Texas' high school exit exam, the TAAS: USED Secretary Paige--former Houston principal--doubtless did not know that the Houston education miracle *poof* was fraud (created by the miracle of cooking the high school dropout data, not dissimilar to cooking enron's books--misleading accounting policies to say the least). It also mandates the impossible: that in less than a dozen 100% of all students everywhere score proficient (no accidents, no boycotts, everyone--perfect everywhere). The 2/21/03 state school board massacre is another example of shock and awe tactics: leave the state rudderless w/o anyone to respond to the mounting federal pressure. This law's coup de grace though is the dozens of categories in which local schools can fail: attendance not high enough on test day? you're not making AYP (not making AYP? then "in need of improvement"--busy, busy schools). Alaska to its credit did initiate a statistical definition of AYP that reduced the number of Type I errors--schools doing fine erroneously classified as failing based on their aggregated test scores because of random error. And it protests that its Title 1 funding depends on literal compliance--not even axiomatic "accommodations" for reality situations like the closest school being a mountain range away (at least until recently). Even w/ now, w/ the increasing political hoopla, this ESEA reauthorization still appears as well read and understood as patriot before it was so overwhelmingly passed (I wish I could afford to provide more free r&d). The NCLB acknowledges what has been observed in countless empirical studies: a high ses/white -- lo SES/not white difference on a lot of different standardized tests. There are numerous interpretations of these test score differences: Under one common positivist paradigm, scores on what for-profit companies say a test measures is what they actually measure, whether w/ "iq" or "achievement." The Alaska leg typifies this kind of naive empiricism. Others argue that such scores mean nothing at all until at least quasi validated. Ironically, as schools that can afford to opt-out, those bearing most of the burden may be those most initially in need of help. In the sense that children get left behind everyday--poverty, abusive parents, the list is long--and in the sense that the law at least superficially addresses the problem resulting from a climate of "low expectations" by requiring test scores be reported disaggregated by groups like the vanilla census 2000 ethnicity categories--which are of little relevance to Alaska. No surprise--being based on the "Texas education miracle"--the law does not require the states to provide disaggregated dropout data. Targeted advertising--based on purchases at the old Carr's/new Safeway's--has already begun on the Kenai Peninsula: how will the data on the little kids be used? Certainly for advertising; certainly for more Texas--Enron, the Houston *poof* education miracle--math; who knows to what totalitarian ends. I am not optimistic. These data will not be used for educational research, which USED regards as being conducted by the "the dullest yeomen". USED presents the PBDMI as the solution. I see it as a Trojan Horse. If this relatively well funded data collection part of the NCLB were on the up-and-up, why would USED indulge in secretive and threatening messages? There is no question that Alaska isn't unique: but to look at approval of Alaska's plan in isolation is to miss the forest for the trees: The NCLB has two components, an under-funded accountability part--17 plans for which were approved in the recent Rose Garden ceremony--and a fully funded data collection part, which is little known. There is no question that Alaska isn't smart: one parent who telephoned said that AK was one of the few states whose public schools he'd allow his kids to attend (he was mad about academic time lost to testing, his kids' time wasted). A page at the whitehouse.gov site says that public support for the NCLB is "rock solid" although that doesn't seem so in states like Utah (Alaska officials proclaim the state leaders in obeying the NCLB [while simultaneously insisting on noting the numerous discrepancies between the law and reality]). Go to an automatically generated news site (news.google or news.yahoo) and paste NCLB into its search window to find out what local communities external to your own are saying. -- That the "houston miracle" has become something of an urban legend was suggested by the Texas Project Grad rep who spoke of looking forward to working with /ken-eye/ schools, having already helped "fix the Houston schools" (APRN, 3.04). Not surprisingly, APRN neither corrected the pronunciation nor challenged the assertion.

Accountability Testing in Alaska under Frank (contd.): The part of the NCLB no one talks about, The Performance Based Data Management Initiative. That the accountability part of the NCLB is like the HSGQE and the TAAS on steroids keeps the schools preoccupied (so many ways to fail, busy schools writing self-improvement plans, and after a few sequential years of not making AYP, so much money to be made assisting those "failing"). You may remember the old Greek myth about the Trojan Horse: after besieging Troy for a decade, the Greek fleet sailed off (behind a nearby island), leaving a cool looking wooden horse outside the city gates--hollow like a chocolate easter bunny but filled w/ enough Greek soldiers to open the city gates from within when attention was distracted, which it soon enough was despite the warnings of Cassandra and Laocoon. Tacitus does not mention whether those Greeks smiled silently as they opened the gates of Troy from within. The other part of the NCLB I came across at a whitehouse.gov site in the process of updating this page: The plan to create a single nationwide database on every U.S. public K-12 kid. No one, of course, speaks of it because there is much money to be made in educational technology these days: so many software applications for entering NCLB-compliant data, custom interfaces, lots of money. Type "hsgqe" into a google window--and see a testing industry advertisement; type in "nclb" and see many, many ads. Although the NCLB requires the local schools to provide scores disaggregated by groups, USED wants individual test scores, as well as names, addresses, and phone numbers. Several examples of state pages talking about data entry are shown below. One problem--in the grand tradition of unfunded federal mandates-- is funding for the local schools, the "first responders" in the present context. Sometimes local schools have to fork over the bucks for the data entry software themselves: Clegg says the issue of having to upgrade systems to the new Federal Performance Based Data Management Initiative came as a surprise to many districts throughout Iowa at a tough financial time. "It's going to be quite a change in terms of software acquisition. Our estimated cost is going to be right around 365 to 385 thousand dollars to fully implement this new federal initiative. There are no federal dollars to be provided for this. There are no state dollars that are going to be provided for it. It's going to be borne by the local taxpayers eventually to pay for this new federal requirement." The new system will require the district to add immunization records and new state student identification numbers to records that are electronically tracked. (KCIN Enews Iowa, 29 Jan 04) Any such costs within my own school borough are apparently covered under a single line item: "computer," which is too large a number to include only hardware and connections (but likely includes the computer costs of the new NCLB carpetbagger "supplemental service providers," exact amount unknown since "insider" information). Indeed, the KPBSD has historically funded the University of Maine to "analyze" student data (cost unknown). There was no open bidding process (the point isn't that I do better work but not supporting the UA system). I wonder whether "data" from the current "advisory" ballot will be sent to UMaine, too, whether the NCLB data on the lst graders--who don't vote, write letters, and have unions--will be more secure than that on the teachers. I see no other interpretation of NCLB data entry anecdotes--listed below under the red panic button (yes, my hair is on fire)-- than that, although expressly prohibited, USED is creating a single nationwide database: call it soft- and hardware evolution, Moore's law, whatever. It is now very easy for the feds to collect data on every kid in the country--especially when the states do their own data entry ("clerk work" as Rep. Dayton put it; "no way in hell are we going to do all they're asking" said another Utah official). Individually identifiable student data about every Alaska public K-12 kids would fit onto a 1.4 MB floppy. But, in Alaska, officials face this orwellian threat w/ quasi-bovine tranquility: as they do all else, silently. All the more tragic because Alaska children will be more adversely impacted than those in other states (kids get SSNs young up here). I interpret all of USED's bombast about rigor--the importance of "scientifically valid and reliable data"--to be about wanting to collect accurate data. Reading through the e-gov documents, I see little evidence that those--too often former doubleclick ad execs--speaking w/ the voice of USED understand quantitative longitudinal research (one discussion of randomization I read merits an A+, as farce in a literature class--so target rich, the documents of these advertising industry execs--and there's, of course, the new "Institute of Education Science" and so many methodological gaffes). Many in Alaska are more than comfortable w/ the idea of not being particularly easy to find ("we don't need no stinking rules" says a local radio dj). It's hard to understand why no one is concerned about individually identifiable data about their children. Perhaps it's related to their local officials telling them that the feds are only getting the aggregated data, not the individually identifiable data. Not through the pipeline crudely but silently behind SSLs. C lick on the "e-gov" link to read an appeal to the Alaska gov about USED's data collection efforts, the other part of the NCLB, whose funding has not been cut since enactment (how convenient to have data on your citizens in the new American century of total information dominance).

July 04. That said about the professional stance from which I view the HSGQE: it is neither technically sound--the little empirical evidence there is suggests that the test does not meet even minimal standards of reliability and validity--nor legally defensible: in the 1970s or 80s there was a Florida case (Debra P. vs. Turlington), in which the courts ruled that the state does *not have the right* to deny a public K-12 student a diploma unless s/he is given the opportunity to learn the material on which the test is based ... Yet that is exactly what happened to over 700 Alaska students this spring (hobbled by its expensive inadequate microsoft-tm software, the state could not initially even say exactly how many had "failed" its flawed test). Unknown is how many failed the test because they had been given no opportunity to learn what was expected and how many failed because the test was flawed. Either way, it is a rank injustice--one that could only pass muster in a state as mired in 19th c. colonial thinking as Alaska (high school exit exams are part of the "standards-based reform" fad that has swept state legislators across the country since the early 1990s ... AK was one of the last states to implement an exit exam: AK could have learned--for example that high school drop-out rates increase when exit exams are implemented--but it chose not to). As to my personal opinion: First, chickadees know more about Alaska and Alaska values than I: I can testify only as a technical person but, like everyone else, I've got opinions. I've only been here since the leg passed the Quality Schools Initiative in 98--and I've watched in shock and awe as state "elected" officials repeatedly respond to reason and science, empirical fact with silence (pretending away reality by not bespeaking it). What I see here is a fundamental lack of respect for Alaska students (small wonder some 40% leave the state never to return)--Alaska citizens generally --on the part of those in name only "senator," "governor," etc.--they are like ostriches hiding their heads in the sand ... but then it is not their children who bear the cost of being irrationally branded by tests like the HSGQE. This reality will not go away for others' children (it is my fear, although I lack the data to do other than surmise, that this burden is not spread equally around the state, that rural schools are more vulnerable than urban ones). The HSGQE will not go away--testing's on the horizon for years to come-- because of the federal NCLB (to think otherwise is to waste what could be energy used practically). Some states--CA most recently--stopped using their exit exam as a diploma-sanctioning test (other states have also done so, i.e., gotten on the bandwagon and then gotten off; a few states like Iowa resisted the standards-based reform bandwagon totally--and their students are doing very well academically). As someone wiser than myself said 'dogs may bark, but the caravan rolls on.' I fear that matters will get worse. I quite agree with you about the potentially devastating "feedback" failing such a test provides (all the more a tragedy when the test yields substantively meaningless scores) ... Under the NCLB small schools are automatically deemed to be making "adequate yearly progress," which results in the state not needing to issue the school a 'report card' to "hold it accountable"--the federal fERPA laws spell this out (a fine UAF grad was I believe the first to observe this [I remember an emailed spreadsheet crosstabulating the FERPA definitions with Alaska's school compositions]). Of course, the FERPA reasoning is sound in that since the state won't issue a small school a 'report card,' it can't possibly violate some students' right to privacy ... However, if the burden of this test is not born evenly across this state, if the students most penalized by the test are at small schools, if their aggregated scores do not contribute to the State's overall "adequate yearly progress"--education used to be under local control, no longer--those students most penalized will be invisible, not appear in the state accountability report, its ledger, i.e., AK could be failing--in the real sense, not the test-score sense--a major portion of its students and still look good to the feds. And then there is also the problem of the NCLB's Performance Based Data Management Initiative (which is collecting data on all public K-12 students). It is ironic that there is a FERPA law when student privacy rights are being systematically violated throughout the country. June 04. The source of my frustration is that, although a latecomer to implementing "standards-based reforms"--the hallmark of which is a high-stakes test like the HSGQE--the leaders of the State of Alaska have chosen to learn nothing from the mistakes made earlier by other U.S. states. Take the example of Texas, an early innovator, its high school exit exam dating back to 1990: when its exam was implemented, the high school dropout rate increased, as it has in state after other state (if Alaska is tracking this phenomena, it is not doing so publicly). Again, although gratified to have had the opportunity to assist a few, I have watched aghast--an outside observer, external to the system--as Alaska has repeated all the mistakes made years earlier by the other states. More recently, over 700 Alaska young people were denied high school diplomas on the basis of their HSGQE test scores. This is irrational, because the current Commissioner of Education has deemed the current HSGQE so flawed--a view supported by existing empirical research--that he fired CTB, the state's testing contractor since the Quality Schools Initiative's inception. Doubtless our leaders' attention has turned to that future test; what need to delve into any prior test data? Yet, even a cursory examination can be informative: Tables 37 through 39 of CTB's most recent technical report indicate that up to 25% of the students sitting for the 2003 HSGQE did not respond at all to the open-ended items on the 3 subtests (http://www.eed.state.ak.us/tls/assessment/HSGQE/TechnicalReports/Spring03TechReport.pdf). Although the state did not require CTB to break down these data by subgroups, it's hard not to wonder whether these percentages were evenly distributed across Alaska schools. You can use the internet to focus your search. For example, click on this link, and a new advanced search engine window will open. Look down this page until you see the line for specifying a search domain: Paste in state.ak.us (and use the pull-down menu near the top right to specify 100 results per page). Now type in your search terms: Search, for example, on HSGQE and retake and fee to get a results page containing links to relevant state documents (you would not find this page on such a search, because this page is not official). The search engine results page also contains summaries which can themselves be informative (forgotten the name of the current "Commissioner of Education"? search on his title and you'll likely find his name in the summary on the results page). Another advantage of accessing official Alaska documents through a search engine is that the engine results page contains links to both the PDF documents provided by the state and automatically generated text versions. The text versions are useful, because you can cite relevant portions by copying and pasting them, obviously more efficient than typing them (which is the only way to cite the PDF documents provided by the state). If discussing, say, the fee schedule for retaking the HSGQE w/ a friend, it's obviously easier to get the regulations correct by pasting--versus typing--them into your email. Using an engine as an interface is the easiest way I know to track state documents--good luck in your search! I used google as the example above, but here are links to the advanced search interfaces for altavista, hotbot, and yahoo. The actual organization of these forms are a bit different from the example in the paragraph above but easy to use. Also included on this e-gov page, towards the bottom, are links to AK's performance standards (representing Alaskans' consensus about what high school students are supposed to know--representing what the CTB tests are supposed to measure--what will be covered in the tests): Towards the bottom of this state HSGQE page are links to CTB's test-item maps, which consisted of AK performance standards cross-tabulated by the number and kind of CTB test items (another way to look at these maps is by courses your brother has already taken and not, as a check-list). On the math test, for example geometry comprises about 10 percent of the questions, 5 of them multiple-choice--like a study guide. Another useful online resource--given your goal of finding ways to help your brother prepare for, study for the HSGQE before taking it in the 10th grade--as suggested by the AK governor's 03-04 operating budget (which equates the HSGQE with the GED and includes phone numbers and email addresses). I did not find a comparable online directory listing HSGQE tutor availability by school. I'll check again in a few weeks, when things are a little less chaotic: AK e-gov has been but recently redesigned--and, while in the process of working out its bugs, doubtless was adversely affected by the most recent worm round (AK servers being exclusively microsoft). December 04: Sounds like a very interesting course: I'm sure you already know to go to www.nclb.gov for the propaganda, to www.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/esea02 for the actual law, and to a site like news.google.com for what the journalists are saying about the NCLB. You asked about the impact of the NCLB on children with "culture and languages barriers." In the case of someone whose native language is not English, who wants to learn English, having a non-English native tongue could be considered a barrier. Similarly, an individual school that literally rises and falls on aggregated English proficiency test scores--the NCLB's punishments for not meetings the state's "annual measureable objective" (amo) are draconian after several years of 'non-compliance'-- could regard students whose native language is not English as a 'barrier' to be overcome (whether its students want or need to learn English or not). So your question could be recast to one about the impact of the NCLB on children whose native languages and cultures are different from the ideologues who formulated the law. At one level the effects are already obvious: over 700 Alaska students were denied diplomas based on scores from a test deemed so bad that the state has changed test publishers. Perhaps with the new oil price windfalls, the governor will eliminate cuts he earlier made to the state's GED program. To the extent that not having a diploma closes doors on future opportunities, these individual students are screwed. They are just the beginning: the number of individual students left behind will only cumulate. In Alaska's case, the NCLB groups one quarter of Ak's public k-12 students into one category, "Native Alaskan" (the broad census 2000 categories). Grouping numerous unique ethno-socio-linguistic into a single group shows that the diversity of these cultures is not even on the radar of the movers and shakers (statistically, what this mono-grouping creates is a situation where between group differences--expected to be large given Alaska's diversity-- wash each other out). At another level, your question could be recast as what the impact of the NCLB on the continued viability of those languages and cultures ... this year Alaska was named the leader, amongst the states, in the president's "faith based initiatives," the leader in promulgating a particular religion: Christianity. I remember reading a press release about our "constitutional" right to prayer in the schools on an nclb.gov page. And on Dec. 8, one newspaper reported that the Bush administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to permit Ten Commandments displays in courthouses . As to my opinion, it's bad now and will get worse.

What happens when you ignore reality? It doesn't go away. What do you call a state that ignores reality? Fool, alaska. What happens when you discuss reality? You make more informed decisions. What do you call a state that faces the issues? Leader, Utah. Rep. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, is preparing a bill for the 2004 Legislature, which convenes next month, that would free Utah of NCLB requirements. "I don't want the schools to be accountable to the feds. And the way this is written, our local school boards will be doing clerk work (for them)," Dayton said. "(NCLB) is a very burdensome, highly intrusive bill. I think it's very deflating to the education community." .... "Turning your back on $107 million sounds like a tough option for Utah to face right now," Matheson said. "That's a lot of money, and Utah's education dollars are stretched pretty thin already." Still, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Steve Laing believes the discussion is politically worth having. "I have some serious concerns about No Child Left Behind, and I think a discussion held in a state so overwhelmingly Republican as Utah is would be informative and helpful," he said. "I think it would be very persuasive with the federal congressional delegation and administration" (Deseret Morning News, 12/18/03). "With Bush facing re-election this year, his No Child Left Behind an administration centerpiece, and Utah being one of the most Republican states in the nation, it was clear the Bush White House was taking no chances with the Utah Legislature. Bush's education officials quickly dispatched top aides, who met Friday with Dayton, other top GOP legislative leaders and state education bosses. There, federal officials said Utah would lose $106 million in NCLB funding if it opted out of the program entirely. Dayton and others then had to weigh whether the money would be worth keeping with so many strings attached. We as the state Legislature are not going to be reduced to clerks" for the federal government, Dayton said .... the federal education officials who visited Utah last week simply laughed .... Utah could wind up the big loser if the Bush administration decides to make an example of the state -- by pulling all its federal education funding, for example -- in order to whip other doubters and recalcitrants into line during this no-holds-barred election season" (Salt Lake Tribune, 2/14/04). Another protesting state is New Hampshire, which recently reduced state funding for testing to $1.00. Alaska is the leader in obeying the NCLB: the gov and his daughter support it, as does the rest of the congressional delegation. The gov says he has fully funded Alaska education. If you believe that, I'd like to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. What to call a government that gives its K-12 data to USED and its senior data to Wells Fargo Bank? An enemy of the people? Pretty damn dumb? What do you call a national law based on the *poof* Houston education miracle, one of numerous Texas frauds so obvious even the NYT noticed? The gov and his daughter favor fraud? No, I think them just deluded. After all, Alaska schools have no bechtel toilets that pump sewage when flushed. We're not at that level of incompetence yet. As usual, the real losers are the students. I am happy for Alaska's pot smokers, that they have a right to privacy under the state Constitution, that they have civil rights: too damn bad the rest of us don't. Alaska media can be counted on to obfuscate the issues: Regardless of merit--not based on suddenly coming up to previously articulated standards--ALL 17 unapproved State accountability plans, including Alaska's, were approved en masse, on 10 June 2003, the day before a congressional deadline, in a special Rose Garden ceremony: To the left below, read what Education Week on the Web recently said of that Rose Garden event; to the right below, read what Anchorage Daily News said of the same event. "Since the plans themselves, and the basis for approving them, are not yet .... available, it's hard to know what to make of it ... we are still negotiating ... said Kentucky ... Iowa's plan was approved, even though the state has no statewide academic-content standards and intends to use off-the-shelf, norm- referenced tests to measure progress ... The department also allowed Nebraska's plan ... [and] Maine's ... and Pennsylvania's [and] Missouri's .... approved on the condition that they were going to do these things" (Olson, 03). Iowa's plan was that it was planning to take the first steps towards standards-based reform, articulating content standards, a step Alaska took years ago. It seems more sensible to say that USED granted general amnesty in a special ceremony than to say it approved the specifics of the 17 individual state "accountability plans." Yet--in a fantasy worthy of the New York Times--the Anchorage Daily-News said of the same ceremony: "Sen. Lisa Murkowski has earned ... applause for her hard work in persuading federal education officials that Alaska presents obstacles .... that make ... impractical stringent implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act. Although you would not know it from most news accounts .... Murkowski fought for a waiver ... demanded ... won her point after tangling with education officials right up until the night before the bill was signed ... in the rose garden" (6/19/03). Credit is certainly due: It took work to orchestrate Secretary Paige's recent trip to Alaska (it also took work, on the part of Alaska's School Board, to craft a quantitative challenge to the NCLB (based on the insight of a recent UA graduate student) and develop a statistical definition of AYP). Crediting Lisa alone is nonsense. There is no question that Alaska isn't unique: but to look at approval of Alaska's plan in isolation is to miss the forest for the trees: The NCLB has two components, an under-funded accountability part--17 plans for which were approved in the recent Rose Garden ceremony--and a fully funded data collection part, which is little known. There is no question that Alaska isn't smart: one parent who telephoned said that AK was one of the few states whose public schools he'd allow his kids to attend (he was mad about academic time lost to testing, his kids' time wasted). It is interesting that the PBDMI was renamed EDEN--and interesting the online forms showing the data the states must supply--they take as long to fill out as they did on paper--showing spaces to insert this and that aggregate data: the data entry tables are so convoluted that words like "gender" appear more than a dozen times in a single form. In a digital world--ignorance of reality is not an excuse for the state whose self image is open source but whose government is a province of redmond--where it is easy for anyone who really wants to intrude into any networked system: in this world, this current reality situation, are you comfortable with forms that aren't transparent, on their face understandable? I could imagine questions whose answers could only be obtained w/ the individually identifiable data--which means the individually identifiable data would be in the state.client computer's cache and could, even w/o an overt request for said data, it could be whisked out of the client alaska.state computer to the host.USED computer. How Like w/ Patriot, the credit goes to the people of Alaska. And so now comes the responsibility. To not act now is to make a decision. If my local newspaper is to be trusted, the courts--remember, part of the "balance of powers"--have recently ruled that an Alaska citizen's right to privacy under the Alaska Constitution is so great as to trump federal marijuana statutes. If the pot smokers have a right to privacy, what would you say about the little kids who currently have no voice? Not New: CTB's Spring 2003 tech report is out. Table 39 lists inter-rater reliability coefficients for the 9 constructued-response writing items (subtract the number of multiple choice items in Table 1 from the numer of multiple-choice (MC) items to get the number of constructed response items [35-26=9). These coefficiens range from a low of about 70 to highs of about 85% (remarkably, this table indicates that students did not submit responses--questions were left blank--from 15 to 20% of the time for each of the 9 items). And yet the students of Alaska have no substantive right of appeal or due process. CTB also published a Spring 2002 HSGQE and Benchmark technical report. The technical report--the only empirical clue as to whether--or not--the ctb test scores--ctb also helps Alaska out with its "terra novas"-- mean squat comes out after the present year's test administration (OASIS data would answer questions about the ASD missing one thousand, like whether related to HSGQE scores). The HSGQE is a diploma-sanctioning test--real consequences for real students--so it must be established that the test is an adequate measure of articulated performance objectives (to not do so is to not show common sense ... to not do so in the present context, when LEAs are to be held accountable by those same scores is folly approaching the sublime). To my surprise, CTB flamed me for summarizing its first two technical reports: Alaska parents, Alaska's test publisher writes me, are not the intended audience of its "contract driven" reports--anyone seen the contract? Although technical issues are involved, Alaska parents, in my experience, understand them when they're explained: They understand that, before drawing inferences from test scores, one must first, rationally, establish what the tests measure; they understand it's unreasonable to expect randomized, double-blind, case-control experimental data from a test publisher (a hypertext page is though possible, with links to specifics like test reliability: CTB presents its coefficients alpha and percent inter-rater agreement, validity estimates, and multi-trait multi-method matrices (Campbell & Fiske, 1959)). Should anyone want to find out more about the tests used--or said to--measure "accountability" in Alaska s/he should be able to do so, because the psychometric characteristics of the tests must be public for accountability to occur. Such a site, a technical statement by the publisher of what's available in e-gov format allowing citizen access--not graphic-hog sucking pages that old MBless machines, which many people still use, cannot handle--is particularly useful in the context of the NCLB, consumptive as it is of existing resources, waxing as Alaska's Constitutional Budget Reserve wanes. The local papers and radio talk-in shows contain an increasing number of critical if not outright hostile discussions of the underfunded accountability part of the NCLB. Often mentioned are the unintended bad side-effects of the increased testing. There is no discussion of the fully-funded--I think its budget even increased in fy04--Performance Based Data Management Initiative. Do you who distrust the accountability part of the NCLB that you understand so well trust the fully-funded data collection initiative you probably don't understand (people's eyes often glaze over at the mention of computers and data, numbers, matrices)? Especially since a file of individually identifiable Alaska K-12 data would be less than 1.4 MB--in the context of the today's common GE 80 MB HDDs, it would hardly be noticeable. As in every other state in the union, the schools enter the individual student data and send it to a central state repository: the schools do not know what happens to the data after being submitted to the state. Does the State know? Do you trust what the state says because it says it? To each of my email buds who've remarked on AK's stand on Patriot, I reply back that the leg deserves no credit (like any shapeshifter, it easily assumes different postures). The credit belongs to the people of Alaska. Go to google--I use it as an example search engine because it is currently the best--and paste in Performance Based Data Management Initiative--or PBDMI or its newer name, EDEN (Education Data Exchange Network). The state noted, in a document that is no longer online, that "In order to initiate an appeal to a student's Fall 2003 Alaska Scale Score, a re-score of a student's test book is required. An appeal to a student's Alaska Scale Score, in one or more of the Reading, Writing and Mathematics content areas will incur processing charges. A handling charge of $54.00 per student, per content area, is required for each appeal and must be submitted with a purchase order. If the re-scored student's performance level changes from NON- PROFICIENT to PROFICIENT, CTB will provide the District with a new student report, at no charge. If the re-scored student's performance level does not change, CTB will invoice the District for the cost of the re-score process. The Individual Student Report is the only report that may be appealed. Summary reports will not be re-generated to accommodate changed student scores." Why Alaskans are allowing their incompetent leaders to railroad their own kids is beyond my understanding. And to give away the data on your own kids boggles any sense of "fair play" I ever understood. Ignorance needn't be a bastion of the last frontier: functionally it is so. I hear from a reader that CTB is outsourcing exam construction--go to elance.com: who knows who will be doing what to generate tests items and test scores and test statistics--for which there is no appeal for most students--reflecting Alaska's "unique" performance objectives--it won't be me since I've pissed off the phrass [and elance doesn't work]. Jeez, how long until we found out that Halliburton is Alaska's new testing contractor? DEEDs has proposed replacing CTB as its testing contractor, putting out an rfp last December. A seven-member state committee will review proposals from five other contractors--also w/ preexisting contracts w/ other "large" (read more lucrative) states. The abysmal turn-around time is mentioned as one reason for change, as is--it's only taken 5 years for ak "leaders" to notice--the importance of tests being aligned w/ state standards. Who's going to decide what's a good proposal when no one in AK DEEDs has expertise--or shows leadership in ignoring (let's thank them)--psychometric issues common to all high-stakes testing? having a new test publisher will not magically resolve existing problems. Why now? To raise dust, make it more difficult for people to see what's going on (anyone who says the NCLB doesn't contain provisions written to benefit the test publishers has not read the law). The losers, of course, are the kids. Since your leaders refuse to take responsibility--lead the pack in ignoring reality--who is left? I wish you luck, but I do not think that will suffice. . New: "Security was tight when Texas State Board of Education members were given results ... from ... new ... test. Guards stood outside their locked meeting room, and board members were asked to sign a secrecy pledge ... 'The results were grim' ... [but] Federal officials ... are satisfied lower standards" aren't an early unintended NCLB byproduct (Dillon, 03).