May 13 2008
open letter to Dr. Jim Rex
I don’t know what happened, but the comments to this post were deleted. I apologize for this. Dr. Rex did respond on this blog and I appreciate his participation. If I can find his response, I’ll surely post it.
Dear Mr. Superintendent,
Thank you so much for your service to this state as our Superintendent of Education. I trust this correspondence finds you well.
The administration of the PACT test draws near again this year, and I hear everyday from teachers, parents and other concerned citizens in my district of the overwhelming anxiety that often accompanies the PACT test. I write you today asking you to end this burden upon our mutual constituents.
Section 59-18-310 of the South Carolina Code states that, “the State Board of Education, through the Department of Education, is required to develop or adopt a statewide assessment program to promote student learning and to measure student performance on state standards….” The department you administer holds the responsibility for the PACT test and might have as early as January 2007, begun the elimination of the PACT, but instead decided to extend the PACT for another year (2008). I remain frustratedas to this series of decisions.
The Senate will possibly consider H. 4662 in the near future. This legislation does indeed discontinue the PACT, but for the sake of our teachers, students, and parents I ask you at this point to stop the PACT. You can do this with a simple pronouncement, today, that the PACT will not be administered in 2009. I trust you will make the right decisions.
With warmest personal regards, I remain,
Kevin L. Bryant
SC Senate District 3
May 15, 2008 @ 18:01:32
for what it’s worth, here’s Dr. Rex’s response, thanks to yahoo cache…
Jim Rex Says:
May 9th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Dear Senator Bryant:
I received your letter expressing concerns about the PACT and asking me to unilaterally end these state tests. I wish it were that simple. Like you, I remain frustrated that ten years have gone by with no major changes to the Education Accountability Act (EAA) created by the General Assembly. Now is an opportune time to update and improve that law.
H.4662 in its current form is more than just a bill to change PACT. It represents the voices of thousands of public education stakeholders calling for comprehensive changes to our education accountability system. It represents a partnership for education reform between the State and local communities. By acting on H.4662, I’m hopeful that the General Assembly will join this partnership.
In addition to replacing PACT, H.4662 also would eliminate burdensome paperwork requirements for teachers; reduce the size of confusing eight-page annual school report cards and save taxpayer dollars in the process; bring South Carolina’s student performance targets into alignment with other states; and review our school accountability system every five years so we can be certain that it’s working efficiently and effectively.
In your letter, you stated that I might have begun the elimination of the PACT as early as January 2007. Unfortunately, the 2007 version of the PACT was already at the printers when I took office. And as you know, PACT cannot be merely “eliminated.” State and federal laws require end-of-the-year accountability tests, so PACT cannot be ended until we have another testing system to take its place.
Immediately after I took office, I began a series of town hall meetings across South Carolina to hear concerns and suggestions from parents, teachers, business leaders, and citizens. I also created statewide task forces that represented a broad cross-section of South Carolinians, and I asked them to recommend comprehensive changes to our accountability system. These volunteers met for hundreds of hours last summer and fall to develop the comprehensive components that make up H.4662. To ignore those recommendations would amount to ignoring the concerns of South Carolinians, and that I will not do.
I agree that the Education Department and the State Board of Education have statutory authority to recommend changes to the state testing system. But under the EAA, my recommendations can take effect only if they are approved by the Education Oversight Committee (EOC).
In other words, I cannot make unilateral “pronouncements” regarding testing because the General Assembly took away my authority to do that. And the General Assembly, while it appoints nearly all of the EOC’s members, cannot tell them how to vote after they are appointed. So the only way to guarantee that we will have a new testing system in place by spring 2009 would be for the General Assembly to require it.
To reiterate, H.4662 involves much more than replacing PACT. We need to make comprehensive changes to the entire system and not just tinker with one aspect. And because the General Assembly created the original EAA, it seems appropriate for our legislators to take a lead role in improving it.
I hope you will exercise your leadership as a member of the Senate to support the changes requested by parents, business leaders, and educators that will help us improve the education we provide our students. I hope that I can count on you to support H.4662 and to encourage your fellow Senators to do the same.
I appreciate the concerns that you have expressed. Together, I believe we can make changes that will address these concerns and create significant, not incremental, progress toward preparing our students for the future.
Sincerely,
Jim Rex
State Superintendent of Education
Pay-to-Play Politics of the PACT Test « The Voice for School Choice
May 14, 2008 @ 19:17:47
[...] Ryberg and Bryant are publicly calling Rex’s bluff. Both have a expressed a desire to ensure PACT is replaced, [...]
May 13, 2008 @ 21:33:07
Senator, I appreciate you re-posting this topic. When we left off, Mr. H. Smith was chastising me for failing to “get my facts straight.” He noted, as I recall (and I’m sure he’ll correct me if I’ve simplified his comments), that the bill actually reduces testing inasmuch as it eliminates the reading assessment for 1st and 2nd graders.
Well, let’s read the bill, shall we?
The following item is deleted from existing law:
Section 59-18-310: (E) The State Board of Education shall adopt a developmentally appropriate formative reading assessment for use in first and second grades to be administered initially in the 2007-08 school year. The assessment must provide opportunities for periodic formative assessment during the school year, reports that are useful for informing classroom instruction, strand, or significant groupings of standards level information about individual students, and must be compatible with best practices in reading instruction and reading research. The State Department of Education shall provide appropriate and on-going professional development to support appropriate use of the assessment.
So, Mr. Smith is correct that the reading assessment is deleted. But let’s read on, shall we?
The new Section 59-18-310 (E) says that, “The State Board of Education shall create a statewide adoption list of formative assessments for grades one through nine aligned with the state content standards and satisfying in English/language arts and mathematics.”
Let me repeat: “formative assessments for grades one through nine aligned with the state content standards and satisfying in English/language arts and mathematics.”
A standard, dare I say simple, reading of this phrase tells me that 1st and 2nd graders will take formative assessment test in English AND math. That’s two assessments, which is exactly 100% more than the one assessment they are taking now.
Now, unless the notion that 2 is more than 1 is far too simple an interpretation of math, I venture to say that the testing burden is increased.
I can’t recall the rest of Mr. Smith’s post, but I hope that he will grace us with it soon.