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 House
Divided on Giving Governor the Power to Appoint the State School
Superintendent
MIRS, May 4, 2005
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Lots of folks
were trying to figure out what was really going on in the House
Democratic ranks Tuesday on the resolution giving the governor
the power to appoint the state school superintendent.
The Democrats said on the floor that they took exception to an
amendment added to HJR C that dealt with criminal checks at
schools, saying it inserted a political element into the
amendment that they wanted to avoid.
Turns out one of the cross-currents involved the division
between the Michigan Education Association (MEA) and the
Michigan Federation of Teachers (MFT). The former was for the
amendment. The latter was not.
The MEA felt that authority should be taken away from the board
and anybody who disagreed must have been worried that the
current governor would not be re-elected.
The MFT, on the other hand, jealously defends the state Board of
Education and it feared if the governor got the power, the next
move would be to abolish the board, which that teacher's union
does not want. The Michigan AFL-CIO leadership agrees with that.
Some Republican leaders wondered why the governor's office was
sending mixed signals on the issue, which may have confused some
Democrats too.
While Gov. Jennifer Granholm believes any governor should be
able to pick the state's top educator, House Democrats got the
message that the administration did not consider this its issue
and therefore it had no position on it.
The governor also wanted to avoid giving the Senate veto power
over anyone she might choose. The House Resolution didn't
include advice and consent, but a similar Senate version does.
While she may have been adamant against advice and consent, the
word is that even some of the Democrats in the Senate favored
advice and consent.
To add some pressure on the Democrats, Speaker Craig DeROCHE
(R-Novi) inserted language into the amendment to keep convicted
sex felons out of the schools, an issue Granholm coincidently
brought up earlier that day in a press release that the
Legislature should take up. He threatened to use a Democrat's
"no" vote on that against any legislator next year.
In the end, only 14 Democrats voted to give the governor
appointment power. Most of the rest didn't vote.
The reason the Democrats' votes were needed was because the
resolution could only be enacted if approved by statewide vote.
Two-thirds majority votes of both houses of the Legislature
would be required to place the issue on the ballot. HJR C needed
74 "yes" votes. It got 72.
Authority Explains MEAP 'Padding'
MIRS, May 4,
2005
The House Education Committee heard testimony today from Ed
ROEBER, of the Office of Educational Assessment and
Accountability, who explained what was behind the so-called
“score padding" with the MEAP (Michigan Education Assessment
Program), a situation where the Department of Education was
forced to recalculate scores.
Roeber cleared up why officials felt the recalibration was
necessary, but the actual cause of the problems with the tests
that led to the situation appears to be open to interpretation.
According to an article in the Friday, April 29, edition of the
Detroit News, MEAP officials had to readjust (or pad, as the
headline suggested) test scores in the written portion of the
2005 MEAP for 4th and 7th graders because the scores had been
inexplicably low.
Roeber told the committee that MEAP officials had deduced a
problem with the prompts for the written portion of the tests,
not a general problem with the performance of the students.
Throughout his testimony today Roeber was careful to use the
term “prompts” instead of “questions" because, as he pointed
out, they do not end with question marks. For example, the
prompt might ask the student to describe something.
Roeber explained that the written portion of the MEAP test is
important because the area of written communication skills
(along with math skills) is a key area in which colleges and
businesses say they find today's students underperforming.
Roeber then gave some background on the writing portion of the
MEAP, and argued that small nuances in this area of the test
could have major effects on results.
“These (the written portions) are short portions of the test and
therefore (the scores) can vary widely from year to year,”
Roeber said. But he went on to explain that in 2005, the
students' performance on the tests dropped by more than 20
points (compared to last year) with both 4th graders and 7th
graders.
According to Roeber, if this drop had actually represented a
decrease in skills, a similar drop should have accompanied it in
the scores on the reading portion of the test.
“The written and reading portions of the tests are highly
correlated,” Roeber said. “Here we had an increase in reading
scores accompanied by a sharp decline in scores on the written
portion.”
Roeber's explanation of the problem appeared to be that, in
reaction to the drop in scores, the MEAP experts looked into the
background of the prompts, and determined that the prompts were
tougher to respond to in 2005 than in previous years. On that
basis, the scores were recalibrated.
However, those at the committee meeting who compared the various
prompts seemed to have difficultly determining exactly how the
2005 prompts were tougher than those from 2004. As least there
didn't appear to be any straightforward way of explaining the
difference.
The committee members appeared to be absorbed in the testimony
but other than House Education Committee Chair Brian PALMER
(R-Romeo), they didn't ask questions.
Palmer asked about electronic (internet) writing tests, which
may be more objectively graded.
Roeber replied that testers may move in that direction, not only
because of grading, but also because more and more students are
used to expressing themselves at a computer keyboard.
"That's really what the kids are used to,” Roeber said. “That's
where they write. They're almost never asked to take a pencil
and sit down and write the way they have to on the (MEAP) test.”
Following today's hearing, Palmer told MIRS he does expect to
have more testimony on the topic brought before the Committee.
“I believe the department is trying very hard to adjust to the
new standards,” Palmer said. "We want to work with them and do
anything we can to help. It's good to know that they're
interested in moving toward a more objective way of testing.”
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