Lawmakers ordered the Michigan Department of Education to stop preparing for the Smarter Balanced Assessment and return to a revamped MEAP test.
How is this playing out for the teachers and administrators who have to teach and give this overhauled MEAP test?
William Heath is the Superintendent of the Morrice Area Schools and the Principal at Morrice Junior and Senior High School in Shiawassee County. He said the changes have been very difficult.
“We need some consistency. We need a target to shoot at. We don’t need the target to keep moving around,” he said.
Heath said they are judged by the growth from the previous year and when the assessment changes, they don’t know how they can measure that growth.
“If we are taking different tests, it’s a weird science experiment that there is too many variables in there. It’s going to make it that much harder to realize what exactly our students know and don’t know,” Heath said.
*Listen to the full interview above.