Re: Nevada State Board of Ed Meeting

[Michelle Trusty-Murphy <5alive@PYRAMID.NET>]

Judi,

Thank you for your concern--you are such a compassionate and caring
person!!

I can't file an OCR complaint because I haven't identified a specific
person who has been harmed.  I haven't been able to get hold of MALDEF
because no one has given me a contact name, although I have, in the
past, asked this list for one.  I don't know who DREDF is, and I can't
file an IDEA complaint because I would, again, have to identify a
particular child and most people are so ashamed, or poor, or downtrodden
that they won't come forward.

I did contact Nevada Disability Advocacy and Law Center and urge them to
file a class action lawsuit with the ACLU, but I haven't heard back.  I
told Evaughn (the attorney there) to get hold of FAIRTEST for info.
That was Friday.  I am supposed to forward her some information about
the laws here, so I will on Monday when I get a copy of her e-mail
address--I seem to have misplaced it!

By the way--I asked Debbie Cahill, Director of Government Relations with
the Nevada State Education Association why they have not come out
against the test.  She said they have no official position at this time,
but that many teachers are becoming more and more upset.  This is the
second year of testing here, and the "new test" is scheduled to come out
in October 2001.  (This "new test" is supposedly so hard that up to 90%
of juniors are expected to fail it.)

Meanwhile, the State Board of Education is being fed a crock of manure
regarding the validity of the test.  From what I understand, even the
people at WestEd have serious concerns about this test--but I think our
State Superintendent, Mary Peterson, is involved in their board of
directors--so there is no telling what is going on.

Paul LaMarka told the board that the test was "valid" because it had
been through several review committees to insure that it had appropriate
content to match the course of study--he said the test was "content
valid."

Stanley Rabinowitz from WestEd argued that they needed more specific
"tracking studies" (he brought the up specific "success" of Louisiana in
doing this!).  He said that the citizen review committee and the equity
study done show that the test "meets industry standards" (Isn't THAT
scary!) and the differential passing rate is due to a "performance
gap--not a biased test" (I guess this means that disabled kids who are
not receiving modification, and limited English proficient kids are just
stupid--it doesn't have anything to do with any problems with the
test!)  He also said there needed to be a "cost-benefit" analysis of
whether it was "cost efficient" to give so many chances to pass the test
to graduating seniors.  (He made me, simply, sick to my stomach--like
the future of children should be boiled down to a "cost-benefit
analysis"!!)

My opponent suggested that these kids just needed more remediation (I
guess we ust need to remediate those disabilities away . . . ).

Michelle

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