Friday, August 22, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: Fool me twice ...

Contractor in charge of scoring standardized tests must go

For the second consecutive year, the private contractor hired by the state to calculate the scores on Nevada students' standardized tests didn't make the grade.

In 2002, miscalculations by Harcourt Educational Measurement led 736 Nevada students -- 550 of them from Clark County -- who had actually passed the mandated high school proficiency exam to believe they had failed the test. As a result of this error, the company was fined $425,000 ... and was notified that any future lapses in its handling of high school tests would lead to the termination of its contract.

This time around, Harcourt overstated the scores of thousands of third- and fifth-graders statewide on the skills test required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. As a consequence, as many as 21,000 youngsters may receive scores that were calculated and reported inaccurately.

Not only will the state (read: taxpayers) have to go to the time and expense of refiguring test scores, through no fault of their own, students at some of Nevada's lowest-performing schools may suffer additional penalties.

There's a "school choice" provision in the No Child Left Behind Act which allows students at underperforming campuses to transfer to better public schools. But thanks to Harcourt's miscalculations, it won't be clear which schools failed to meet federal standards until the corrected test scores are calculated. Those figures won't be available until the school year has begun, so some children who should be able to transfer from inadequate schools to better campuses will have to wait until classes have started to make their move.

"I am very upset and very disappointed," state Board of Education member John Hawk said. Mr. Hawk suggested Harcourt would face additional fines ... or, perhaps, the company's $13.2 million contracts to score elementary and high school tests might finally be terminated.

This should be a no-brainer: Harcourt must be given the boot. Two errors in two years should demonstrate, beyond any doubt, that the contractor is incapable of living up to its obligations.

After dumping Harcourt, officials will have to find another outside firm to grade and record standardized test scores for Nevada's elementary and secondary students. This time around, much tougher scrutiny of potential contractors will be essential. Nevada's children deserve no less.