Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012

ACT replacing state's 10th-grade writing test

Another North Carolina standardized test goes extinct this year, with the federal government giving the state permission to drop a 10th-grade writing test that had been used to help determine school quality.

The writing scores had been used under the federal No Child Left Behind law, which is why the state needed the U.S. Education Department's approval to stop giving the test.

The writing test is one of about a dozen state standardized tests eliminated in the last two years. The legislature passed laws getting rid of most of them. The state Department of Public Instruction resisted dumping some of those but sought to end the writing test. Starting this March, high school juniors will take a national college entrance exam called the ACT, which includes a writing section.

Having both the standalone 10th-grade test and the ACT would be redundant, said June Atkinson, state Superintendent of Public Instruction.

The state is paying for juniors to take the ACT and is using the scores to help determine whether schools are preparing students for college and work. The ACT scores can be used to compare North Carolina students with others around the country taking the same test, Atkinson said, giving the ACT an added benefit over the state test.

The department will save more than $1 million because it doesn't have to pay to have the 10th-grade test graded. The savings will be put toward the cost of giving the ACT, Atkinson said.

The N.C. Association of Educators was fine with the elimination of the writing test, said president Sheri Strickland. Teachers are being encouraged to include more written-response questions in the classroom tests they develop, she said. The sustained attention to quality writing on different topics helps students learn to write effectively, Strickland said.

Most of the winnowing of standardized tests came with the legislature's increasing dissatisfaction with the state testing program. Lawmakers responded to complaints that teachers felt pressured to focus single-mindedly on test preparation and to criticism that results could not be used to compare students to their counterparts around the nation.

State tests were dropped with the aim of leaving only those required to meet federal law or qualify for federal grants.