Re: Minnesota Mess

[Gloria Pipkin <gpipkin@I-1.NET>]

Jim,

I don't know the answers to any of your excellent questions but I want to
welcome you to the list and thank you for posting. NCS, the company
responsible for the latest scoring SNAFU (that we know about), in Minnesota,
was recently fined $4 million dollars for failing to report FCAT (Florida)
test scores until the end of June.  The state and districts were smart
enough not to use the scores to force anyone to start summer school in July
, so I doubt there were any suits here.

There is an active law suit against Jeb Bush's so-called A+ plan for
education, which involves using test scores to grade schools, but the suit
attacks the unconstitutionality of using state funds to give vouchers to
children in "low-performing" schools.

Bob Schaeffer recently posted here about law suits that FairTest has been
involved in, but I don't recall any that were based on acknowledged errors
in reporting scores or on emotional distress caused by the tests.  Bob will
correct me, I hope, if I'm wrong.

Gloria Pipkin
gpipkin@i-1.net


----- Original Message -----
From: Delta Of Georgia , Inc. <dogi@MINDSPRING.COM>

> First let me introduce myself, My name is Jim Dumond, I am an electrical
> contractor in the Atlanta,
> Georgia area, I signed on to the list serv at the request of Ms. Lisa
> Amspaugh a few weeks ago, and have
> been trying to get up to speed on what is going on around the country with
> this type of testing. I have been
> involved locally with Lisa's attempts to make reason of the fiasco here.
>
> I have several questions that I hope you will find time to address to help
> me get a handle on what has
> already transpired.
>
> 1: Since the grading companies around the country have obviously made some
> rather critical errors in
> grading, keeping some students from graduation. Have any civil proceedings
> been brought against these
> companies by the affected students?
>
> 2: If so, what were the outcomes?
>
> 3: Are you aware of the amount of insurance coverage the test grading
> companies are carrying?
>
> 4: Has anyone ever brought proceedings against a municipality,test
designer,
> and /or a test grader for
> "emotional stress?" or "lost earnings potential?"
>
> Any such law suite's , If publicized, could help the cause.  If only 1% of
> the 8000 students in Minnesota
> were to threaten legal action the press would be all over the story.

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