District leaders believe schools and teachers should not be penalized for the low scores on the ISTEP. ISTEP scores distinguish whether a school is an A-F school and are used for teacher evaluations. Since the scores from 2015 were so low, the lawmakers did not hold schools or teachers accountable. Many are wondering and have been asking for the lawmakers to do the same thing this year. Superintendent, Dennis Chambers, of Cowan Community Schools, stated, “Some of them are so low that how can we have confidence that those are accurate? That’s not reflective of what’s going on statewide”. Jennifer McCormick supports not holding schools accountable for the scores. The only “credible data” is comparing districts statewide, however some districts used paper and pencil while others used computers. Cowan stated, “None of use are afraid of accountability, we just want to be able to rely on it”.
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Abstract by Elizabeth Wood, AIR apprentice
