OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister is eliminating field testing for this year's state writing assessments amid growing concerns among educators and parents.
The Tulsa World reports Hofmeister says the elimination will halve the amount of time required for fifth- and eighth-graders to take writing tests, thus freeing up valuable time for more classroom instruction.
In January, he Oklahoma PTA encouraged parents to opt out their children from writing tests taken each year by fifth- and eighth-graders because one of the test's two writing prompts was going to be a field test.
Testing vendors use field tests to develop new test questions for future use, but field test results are not shared so they can be used by the student, parent, teacher or school district.