Nebraska’s Student, School Evaluation System Fails the Test for Some

By Jeffrey Robb, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.

Apr. 15–Picotte and Ezra Millard are neighbors in educating northwest Omaha grade-schoolers, sitting just a mile apart but across the boundary of the Omaha and Millard school districts.

Say you’re a parent looking to buy a house in the neighborhood and want to know which school is better.

Good luck getting an objective reading, despite the country’s pervasive educational culture of testing and accountability and Nebraska’s own efforts to detail how students are learning.

To see the numbers, Picotte scores higher in math and reading. More Picotte students are “proficient.”

Just watch what you’re comparing. Being in different districts, Picotte and Ezra offer different tests to prove they meet Nebraska’s academic standards. On top of that, the definition of “proficient” means something different when you cross Blondo Street.

Picotte could be the better school. Or Ezra kids might be held to a tougher standard.

That’s the system Nebraska has developed for eight years — one that shuns statewide tests. Nebraska took its unique method all the way to Washington for special dispensation under President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law. The system has since won kudos nationally as a groundbreaking way to ensure that students are learning.

But it’s a system under attack in the Nebraska Legislature. Momentum is building for significant changes after the emergence of a stunning charge: Nebraska is not following what its own law intended.

The issue has put the Nebraska Department of Education on the defensive and the state education commissioner at odds with state lawmakers. Nebraska education officials are pushing to preserve a system that cost millions of dollars and countless teacher hours to create.

The Legislature’s Education Committee is poised to advance changes that could create new statewide tests in math and reading. It also is considering ways to allow direct academic comparisons, at least regionally, among schools and districts.

State Sen. Greg Adams of York, a committee member and former social studies teacher who worked with Nebraska’s system, said any changes should respect the work that created the system. But in one committee meeting, he offered his take on the suggestion that the Legislature leave the system alone.

“That is not going to happen,” Adams said.

State Education Commissioner Doug Christensen, who has a disdain for school comparisons, said the Legislature risks destroying a system that is better for education. “This seems to me to be a fight that’s not necessary at all, and not in our best interest.”

Other states typically give students statewide tests in core subjects. Nebraska allows school districts to rate performance their own way.

Instead of students answering a question on a test, their progress is “assessed.” That could mean completing a small task to prove a skill.

Elsewhere, students take tests at the end of a course or the end of the school year. In Nebraska, teachers can give assessments at any time.

As a result, Nebraska has not one statewide testing system, but a compilation of local systems. The exception is Nebraska’s statewide writing test.

Last July, as federal education officials scrutinized Nebraska, the Legislature’s Audit and Research Office launched an inquiry into Nebraska’s assessment system and its origins. The audit originated with a request from Sen. Ron Raikes, Education Committee chairman.

The audit, released in February, reached this conclusion: The Nebraska Department of Education and the state’s system do not meet the requirements of the academic accountability law that the Legislature passed in 2000.

That law, according to the audit, required creation of four model tests in each subject. School districts should be choosing from one of four tests, not developing their own, the audit concluded.

The State Education Department has strenuously objected to the audit’s conclusions.

Education officials argue that the law never specifically called for a “test” and that the department fulfilled the law’s requirements. To the department, that legally permitted local assessments.

Raikes has introduced Legislative Bill 653 to revamp Nebraska’s system. The Legislative Performance Audit Committee has prioritized the bill.

The key issue under discussion: Is Nebraska’s system on or off track?

Adams, who helped create local assessments when he taught at York High School, said the system has taken too much of teachers’ time and even driven teachers from the profession.

“The teachers have reached a point where, ‘This is nuts. Give us a break,’” Adams said.

Raikes said comparability of test scores suffers under the current system.

“Academic accountability,” Raikes said, “requires that you can make some comparisons about how well students are doing.”

But Christensen said Nebraska has created a system that improves teaching. Moving to a standardized system, he said, would make education in Nebraska more about recalling information for a test, not actual learning.

“I just think Nebraska can do better,” he said. “It has demonstrated it can. Why would you destroy that kind of promise?”

Nationally, Christensen has earned a reputation as a maverick for defending Nebraska’s system against the testing mandates of No Child Left Behind.

Christensen acknowledges shortcomings in Nebraska’s system when it comes to comparing results. But he said the department is working to narrow the definition of “proficiency” so that it means the same thing anywhere in Nebraska, even if districts use different assessments.

Christensen has the support of the Nebraska Council of School Administrators and the Nebraska State Education Association, the 26,000-member teachers union.

Jay Sears, an NSEA official who works with teaching issues, said the Legislature should change the law to allow current practices so years of preparation don’t “go down the drain.”

“Let’s not tear the system apart,” he said.

But changes are on the table in the Education Committee.

Under the committee’s concepts, Nebraska’s regional educational service units would play a larger role in creating academic assessments. Those would be administered across all the school districts in each ESU, allowing for direct comparisons among those districts.

In addition, math and reading tests would be given statewide.

The Omaha schools controversy also factors into the potential changes. The committee favors merging the metro area’s two ESUs. That, in combination with uniform testing across each ESU, would provide a metro-wide testing and accountability system.

If the committee votes out LB 653, it’s unclear how quickly it might surface for floor debate. But a debate is coming about Nebraska’s direction.

“I’m not sure it’s a terribly bad direction,” Adams said. “But it’s far from perfect.”

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Copyright (c) 2007, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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