September 16, 2005
LANSING
– The State Board of Education will give local school districts that have enrolled displaced students from Hurricane Katrina the option of whether to administer the state’s standardized science and social studies tests.
The State Board moved at its monthly meeting Tuesday to give schools enrolling evacuated students from
Louisiana
and
Mississippi
the option to exclude hurricane-displaced students from taking the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) and MI-Access assessments on a case-by-case basis for reasons of severe emotional trauma. MI-Access is the state’s alternate assessment for students with disabilities.
The resolution unanimously adopted by the State Board encourages that “all elementary and middle school students evacuated from Hurricane Katrina and currently enrolled in Michigan public schools should participate to the maximum extent possible in the MEAP and MI-Access testing, but that the schools enrolling such students may, on a case-by-case basis, for reasons of severe emotional trauma, exclude such students…”
“These children have gone through a horrible ordeal,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Mike Flanagan. “For those students who still carry the severe emotional scars, it wouldn’t be appropriate to add on the stress of taking these state tests.”
The State Board was limited to addressing only the science and social studies tests because the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law requires every student in grades 3-8 to be tested in math and English language arts (ELA).
The Michigan Department of Education has informed school districts having hurricane-displaced students that they must administer the math and ELA tests to comply with the federal requirement that 95 percent of a school’s students be tested in order to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP).
The actual scores of these students on the math and ELA tests, however, will not count against the schools because of a provision that requires a student to be enrolled at a school for a full academic year for the test scores to count.
The MEAP science tests are given to fifth and eighth graders. The social studies tests are given to sixth and ninth graders.
“We have nearly 100 hurricane-displaced students reported enrolled in Michigan schools,” said State Board of Education President Kathleen N. Straus. “Other states have several thousand. Our states are in discussions with the U.S. Department of Education regarding these issues of assessment and accountability. But until we hear from the USDOE otherwise, we will make sure schools will comply with the federal law.”
The State Board also honored 29 schools that were in the school restructuring sanction phase of NCLB and made Adequate Yearly Progress for the second consecutive year, taking themselves off the sanctions list.
“These schools have worked extremely hard at raising student achievement and meeting the requirements of No Child Left Behind and should be congratulated and encouraged to keep up the great work,” Straus said.
The schools honored were:
