State scraps standardized test

WASILLA — After push back from teachers, parents and legislators, the Academic Measures of Progress (AMP) test will soon be history.

On Wednesday, the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (DEED) issued a press release in which commissioner Mike Hanley agreed it would be “in the best interest of Alaska to consider new assessment structures that better align to instructional needs.”

The department cited “increasing frustration” among educators as contributing to the test’s demise.

Last October, a group of 20 school district superintendents wrote a letter asking the Alaska State Board of Education to get rid of the AMP test after receiving results (six months late) that provided “very little information … targeted to student needs.” The scores came in a 1, 2, 3 or 4 format — 1 and 2 being non-proficient — with no indication of what, specifically, an individual needed to work on.

The department acknowledged there were problems with the test.

“These issues included delayed reports, reports needing to be corrected, and an insufficient level of information regarding student performance,” read the release. “While the department has been engaged in problem-solving with school districts to improve the 2016 AMP administration and reports, there has been a growing lack of confidence among educators statewide in the assessment.”

Rep. Jim Colver (R-Palmer) said he made it his mission to kick AMP out of Alaska schools. After the announcement, Colver took credit for leading the fight against the controversial test.

“I drafted legislation to repeal the AMP test, all along hoping that enough exposure and sunshine to this would get the department to back off and drop this test and go back to something more meaningful,” Colver said.

In an email report sent Thursday, Colver called the end of AMP “great news.”

“Our diligence has paid off,” Colver wrote.

However, students will likely still have to take the AMP test this spring, as it is too late in the school year to get a substitute standardized test approved, and federal law requires each state to have at least one annual standardized test. The state also has a five-year contract with University of Kansas designers of the test that is not yet complete.

Mat-Su Borough School District superintendent Dr. Deena Paramo was one of the 20 superintendents who signed the letter asking to get rid of AMP. She said Thursday the state could request a waiver from the federal government to not administer the test, but would still have to pay the contract fees.

Colver doesn’t think students should have to “go through the motions” of taking the test this year.

“Good data works — lousy data doesn’t help you at all,” he said. “Garbage in, garbage out.”

Paramo and Colver said they hope the state will ultimately replace AMP with the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test, which has been used in the Mat-Su school district before.

In the meantime, Paramo said it’s ultimately up to the parents to decide if they want their children to take the AMP test this spring. Though the state does record student absenteeism at individual schools on standardized testing days (which can be “counted against you” in other ways, she said) there’s not much a school can do about parents keeping their kids home.

“We don’t chase kids down to test them,” Paramo said.

Sen. Mike Dunleavy is working to get parents involved in the adoption of state standards and assessments through Senate Bill 80, which would require standards to be reviewed once every five years by a committee comprised of at least 50 percent parents. Standards would have to be approved by the Legislature.

The bill would also prevent DEED from accepting grants with associated standards unless approved by the Legislature.

The current legislative session ends April 17.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.