CHARLESTON, W.Va. — State Superintendent of Schools Michael Martirano says standardized tests results should now be available in August, which should work to schools’ advantage.
Previously, results were not available until December. Martirano thought that the earlier the results are in, the better it is for improving education.
“It’s much more time than expected from the past,” the superintendent said. “I’m a true assessment person in the sense of using that data and getting it back as quickly as we can. You want to have that data in your hands to make good decisions for kids.”
He said that there’s no reason to wait until December when the entire first semester of school is over with.
“I’m holding myself accountable, I’m holding our department accountable and I’m holding our vendor accountable. They have said they’ll have those results to us in the month of August. That will be the earliest for the state of West Virginia.”
This spring there was a lot of complaining from teachers about the new testing system causing confusion. Martirano said that although there were instances of failures, he was pleased with how smoothly the testing went for the first year. In his mind, the horror stories were overblown.
“You expect a certain level of things to occur, but we didn’t have any major power outages or major failures in our system overall and it worked overall.”
Martirano was extremely pleased with the test coordinators and said there was excellent communication, especially considering how rough the first year of new testing had been in the past.
The state superintendent has long been a proponent of standardized testing in West Virginia, speaking out against parents who opt their kids out of taking them.