An error on the part of a testing company that scored nearly 1,000 Mississippi seniors’ U.S. History tests this year could have resulted in some students receiving diplomas who should not have graduated and vice versa.
This year, the testing window for U.S. History, a state test produced by Bloomington, Minn-based NCS Pearson Inc. and required for graduation, was at the beginning of May. Although the test is typically taken in a student’s junior year, students have several re-testing opportunities in their senior year.
Seniors who needed the U.S. History test to graduate were told to take the test by May 6 in order to receive an expedited score. Shortly after the testing window, Pearson delivered a data file to the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) containing the scores of around 13,000 students—951 of whom were seniors—according to state education officials. MDE then sent the scores for the 951 seniors to schools on May 12 so they could be factored in to students’ graduation files.
Weeks later, however, officials with Pearson notified the Mississippi Department of Education of an error in scoring all 13,000 students’ tests.
“We’ve recently been notified several weeks later (by Pearson) that they used the incorrect conversion table to score the assessment,” Paula Vanderford, chief of research and development at the state education department, said. “ … By Pearson using the incorrect table, what it did is it gave some students a slightly higher score than they should’ve received, while it gave other students a slightly lower score than what they should’ve received.”
Vanderford said it is not currently clear how many students this affects or the impact statewide.
“It’s more difficult to determine the impact strictly because it’s not just the students at the cut score because we have all these other options that students can use to graduate in lieu of passing the test,” Vanderford explained. “So a scale score is very important for use to a student in a concordance table or composite table, so that’s why it’s so difficult to determine the impact immediately.”
Pearson spokesperson Laura Howe said the company apologizes and “is working with the Mississippi Department of Education to correct the scores and resolve this situation as soon as possible.”
Pearson must submit the remaining scores for all 27,000 students who took the U.S. History test in the spring by June 23, according to the contract.
As a result, the State Board of Education on Friday voted to terminate the state’s 10-year contract with Pearson Assessments based on a “pattern of poor performance,” according to Vanderford. The board then approved a one-year emergency contract with Questar to administer the tests previously done by Pearson for next school year.
The testing company had been tasked with administering 5th and 8th grade science, Biology I, and U.S. History tests for Mississippi since 2000.
“The decisions made today are in keeping with the board’s duty to act in the best interest of students. Continued errors that directly impact students are unacceptable,” said Rosemary Aultman, board chairwoman.
“We are disappointed by today’s board decision but stand ready to assist the state in any way possible,” Howe said.
According to MDE, the most recent error is the third in recent years on the part of the testing company. In 2012, answer choices for one question on the Biology I test were transposed, causing 126 students to receive failing scores. The second error took place in 2015, when online testing was interrupted for 5th and 8th grade science, according to the Mississippi Department of Education.
The total cost of Pearson’s 10-year contract was about $28 million.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. To republish online, simply click the button, copy the html code and paste into your Content Management System (CMS).
- Editorial cartoons and photo essays are not included under the Creative Commons license and therefore do not have the "Republish This Story" button option. To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.
- You have to credit Mississippi Today. We prefer “Author Name, Mississippi Today” in the byline. If you’re not able to add the byline, please include a line at the top of the story that reads: “This story was originally published by Mississippi Today” and include our website, mississippitoday.org.
- You can’t edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style.
- You cannot republish our editorial cartoons, photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission (contact our managing editor Kayleigh Skinner for more information). To learn more about our cartoon syndication services, click here.
- Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories.
- You can’t sell or syndicate our stories.
- You can only publish select stories individually — not as a collection.
- Any web site our stories appear on must include a contact for your organization.
- If you share our stories on social media, please tag us in your posts using @MSTODAYnews on Facebook and @MSTODAYnews on Twitter.