An open book
State school board to make schools' AIMS scores public
Tuesday, 28 September 1999
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/0928N5.html
By Sarah Tully Tapia
The Arizona Daily Star
PHOENIX - The public will see how individual schools fared in the first round
of Arizona's high school graduation test after all.
The state Board of Education voted unanimously yesterday to release the inaugural
results of Arizona's Instrument to Measure Standards, or AIMS. Results, from the
school to the state level, are expected at the end of October or beginning of November.
At last month's meeting, board President Mary Garcia said she wanted to limit public
information about AIMS because it is in its early stages. In an interview, Garcia
said state-level information was sufficient.
This year's juniors were the first class to take the test, last year. While members
of that class need not pass the AIMS to graduate, their scores will be stamped on
their senior year transcripts.
This year's sophomores are the first students who must pass the exam to graduate.
Garcia, superintendent of Sunnyside Unified School District, had said she wanted
to wait to release all the information until the test became a graduation requirement.
But yesterday she voted in favor of the public release of all scores.
After the vote, Garcia said she still has concerns about the release of full data,
but decided ``it was in the best interest of the whole issue not to continue to fight
it.''
Much of yesterday's discussion was about what the board intended last November when
it decided to delay the graduation requirement for a year.
Before that vote, the Class of 2001 was to be the first class required to pass thetest.
Garcia and some other board members said they thought that vote also meant this year's
juniors were exempt from having the test results stamped on transcripts.
But Lisa Graham Keegan, state superintendent of public instruction and a board member,
said the vote changed only the graduation requirement. The Department of Education
has sent notification monthly to districts and announced at public forums that the
transcripts would be marked.
Because of the confusion, the board voted yesterday to require that juniors be retested,
and that pass or fail results be printed on juniors' transcripts once they finish
their senior year.
Garcia and member Thava Freedman voted against putting the results on transcripts.
In other action, the board decided that the state will pick up the tab for 10th-graders
in private schools, Bureau of Indian Affairs schools and home schoolers who volunteer
to take the AIMS this year.
The department estimates it will receive requests to test about 6,500 sophomores
in such schools, and that it will cost $56,000 to give them the AIMS this year. About
59,000 10th-graders are enrolled in the state's public schools this year.
The state will arrange for some of those students, especially home-schoolers, to
take the exam at a testing site or a local school. Private and BIA schools will be
required to sign contracts and undergo training to administer the test themselves,
said Billie Orr, state associate superintendent.
Those scores will be made public.
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More information about the Arizona Board of Education inluding its members, agenda
and meeting dates can be found at the Arizona Department
of Education homepage. They also have a page detailing the AIMS test.
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