According to a June 14, 2008, story appearing in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, 41 percent of high school sophomores taking a new 60-question, multiple-choice science test flunked it, even though the “pass” score was set at a relatively low 60 percent by the Board of Education. Richard Vineyard, assistant director for curriculum and a K-12 science consultant for the state Department of Education, told the paper that the “science test questions were developed by Nevada teachers and then edited by a state contractor.”
The paper also reported that “Mary Pike, the director of science, health and foreign curriculum for the Clark County School District, denied that it was a dumbed-downed test.” The paper further noted that sample questions from the test were “not yet available.”
So we sent a letter to the Department of Education requesting to see a sampling of the test questions so as to make an independent judgment as to whether or not they were “dumbed down.” In response, state school chief Keith Rheault told us to pound sand, saying “it will be approximately three years before we will be able to release a complete test form.”
Got that, parents and taxpayers? There’s a suspicion that the new science test was dumbed down and yet nearly half of the students tested STILL flunked it even though the passing grade was dumbed down to 60 percent…AND WE CAN’T SEE THE QUESTIONS FOR ANOTHER THREE YEARS!
And some of you still wonder why I’m so hostile to the public education system?
Posted on July 3rd, 2008 by Chuck Muth
Filed under: Nevada
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