http://co.chalkbeat.org/2015/03/11/state-board-blows-up-science-social-studies-test-scores/#.VQMav454qU8
Colorado policymakers can't decide where to set cut scores for science and social studies tests given last fall, and they won't release the scores until they come to some agreement. I'd love to see other kinds of score representations, like histograms showing the distribution of scores, but I'm pretty sure cut scores are baked into NCLB reporting requirements. Stories like this are a reminder that it's not the *test* that's potentially invalid, it's the *inferences* we make about the test that we have to worry about. There may not be right and wrong places to put cut scores, but some choices would be more sensible than others, and those choices do influence how people interpret scores.
Colorado policymakers can't decide where to set cut scores for science and social studies tests given last fall, and they won't release the scores until they come to some agreement. I'd love to see other kinds of score representations, like histograms showing the distribution of scores, but I'm pretty sure cut scores are baked into NCLB reporting requirements. Stories like this are a reminder that it's not the *test* that's potentially invalid, it's the *inferences* we make about the test that we have to worry about. There may not be right and wrong places to put cut scores, but some choices would be more sensible than others, and those choices do influence how people interpret scores.