Hamilton County principals are asking that Part 1 of the TN Ready Assessment be dropped this year due to the recent crash of the online system for the program.
The principals also asked that any Part 1 TN Ready test results not be applied to students’ grades or to evaluations and rankings for school personnel and school districts.
County school board member Joe Galloway on Thursday said he will ask the board next Thursday to join in the request.
The local principals also said the scores should not be applied toaccountability data until the 2018-2019 school year.
Here is the statement from the Hamilton County principals:
As advocates for the students of Hamilton County and based on the recent failure of the TN Ready online assessment, the Hamilton County Principals Association would like to make the following recommendations out of an obligation to our students and teachers:
*Part I of the TN Ready Assessment should be eliminated this school year based on the potential lack of reliability and validity of developing a paper/pencil assessment in a short time frame. Valuable instructional time has been dedicated to preparing for an online assessment that has been abruptly changed. Eliminating Part I of the TN Ready Assessment will allow valuable instructional time back into teacher and student schedules.
* Due to the abrupt change from an online format to a paper and pencil assessment, the test scores from the TN Ready State Assessment for the 2015-2016 school year should not be applied to students’ grades as well as teacher, administrator, school and district final evaluative measures and rankings.
* In addition to changes to this year’s accountability measures, the scores should not be applied to accountability data until the 2018-2019 school year. The reasoning behind this recommendation is due to the fact that to compare 2015-2016 scores (paper/pencil) to 2016-2017 scores (online format) would not be an accurate measurement of growth because the two assessments will be taken using entirely different formats. Additional time also lends itself to increased reliability of test results.
It is the desire of the Hamilton County Principals Association that the above stated recommendations be considered for immediate action.
Members of the Hamilton County Principals Association