Clowns from a Clown Car: Ohio joins in.

It is officially a circus and the clowns continue to pour out of the clown car.

Today we learned that Ohio will be “cannibalizing” Florida’s FSA, to create, in record speed, its own new state assessment (info here). What could go wrong?

Ohio, like Florida in 2013, announced it is dropping out of the PARCC assessments and has hired AIR to create a new state assessment. The process is detailed here. Anyone who has been following the Florida FSA debacle will see the irony:

“So for now, Ohio and AIR are cannibalizing questions from exams in other states that use AIR as their testing service. Those recycled questions will make up Ohio’s exams just for 2016.

“We know that they work,” said John Cohen, AIR’s president of assessments. “They’re all fair. “

I know. They work. They’re fair. Lol.

From the comments to the Cleveland article, it appears not all Ohioans are convinced:

“Don’t let them fool you into thinking that just because a handful of questions were OK’d previously in other states that these tests are sound psychologically or developmentally.  Who in their right mind would have confidence in these tests that are being admittedly cobbled together within a tight timeframe?”

Keep in mind that Ohio’s test creation timeline is even shorter that Florida’s was. Good luck with that, Ohio. The Alpine Validity Report (here) outlines Florida’s rushed implementation of the FSA and it’s “renting” of questions from Utah’s SAGE test. Recommendation 2.1 states the FLDOE should provide further documentation and dissemination of the review and acceptance of Utah state items and the FLDOE should finalize and publish documentation that provides evidence that the FSA field testing policies, procedures, and results are consistent with industry expectations.

We think that is a great idea!  Where are those validity documents? Folks in Utah have been asking for those documents for more than a year (details here and here). Currently, some in Utah are suggesting Florida’s Alpine Study affirms the validity of the original SAGE test.

I know. Again, Lol. That’s a good one… the flawed implementation of the FSA verifies the validity of its field test.  Maybe Florida can use Ohio’s test to further verify the FSA!

One more thing: Florida is currently paying Utah $5.4 million dollars a year to “rent” Utah’s questions.  Will Ohio be paying Florida to borrow its questions? If they borrow a Florida question that originally came from Utah, who gets the money then?

So here are our questions:

1. Why does the Ohio DOE want to copy what happened in Florida this year? Do they not read the news?
2. Where are the SAGE validity reports? (No, not the Alpine Validity Report, the real ones.  Hint: they don’t exist)
3. Why did Florida have to pay for Utah’s questions, but AIR allows Ohio to “cannibilize” the Florida test?  And, if Ohio DOES pay us for our questions, do we need to share the money with Utah?
4. When will our educational leaders finally wake up to the fraud that is being perpetuated by AIR across the nation?
5. How many clowns can fit in that damn car?