Gainesville schools cleared of any CRCT wrongdoing

GAINESVILLE - Gainesville City Schools have been cleared of any wrongdoing in the way last year's Criterian Reference Competency Test (CRCT) was handled.

At the center of the investigation, which is being conducted statewide, are an usual number of erasures that occurred on the tests at many schools.

But, Dr. Richard Krise and Marica WIlliams with the Pioneer Regional Education Agency (RESA) told the Gainesville Board of Education Tuesday the investigation had concluded that there was no wrongdoing in the way the CRCT was administered in Gainesville schools.

Fair Street second grade teacher Sue Beard said the report was good news adding that suspicion that teachers were at fault stung the educators.

"It came out that everything was fine and that there was no wrong doing, it came out on our side for certain," Beard said."The words have been said and you can't take them back, we work very hard with the children."

Supt. Merrianne Dyer said students at the two elementary schools in question, Fair Street and Gainesville, did the erasures that had raised a red flag, not teachers.

Fair Street had been placed in the "moderate concerns" category and Gainesvile elementary in the "severe concerns" group.

Dr. Dyer said the problem is really the diverse student population in Gainesville and the difference between it and the state.

"How can you get a comparison between the state and schools that have (our) demographic population?"

In fact, the report noted "...the erasure data from these two schools most likely varies significantly from the state's data due to the difference in population at these two schools from the state population."

As a result of the study's findings, the Gainesville School System is making some changes in its testing procedures. Among them: central office officials will monitor at Fair Street and Gainesville during testing, a state-assigned monitor will be placed at Gainesville elementary during testing, teachers will be rotated for test administration during the CRCT, and democraphic information from each testing group will be collected for use in any future analyses or review of CRCT Spring 2010.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2010/3/228238