LEWISTON — After hearing several teachers say the new Maine Educational Assessment Smarter Balanced tests taken on iPads “don’t work,” Lewiston School Committee Chairman Jim Handy asked the School Department on Tuesday to tell the state he doesn’t want students using “an incomplete” state product.
Parents, Handy said, have the right to “opt out” of having their child take the test.
The discussion began when Lewiston Middle School teacher Brian Banton said teachers had training Tuesday practicing the tests on iPads. The state is requiring students to take the exams on iPads or laptops.
“I was shocked to discover it doesn’t work,” Banton said. “As our training went on this morning, teachers in the room looked at each other and said, ‘We can’t do this.’”
Examples he offered included math problems.
“One of the issues is once you enter a point on the iPad, you can’t take it off.” What that means, he said, is if you make a mistake “you can’t undo it.”
Another problem is that multiplication symbols “don’t appear as multiplication symbols. As we went on, I was amazed to discover that the test doesn’t work,” Banton said.
The test will be challenging enough if everything went as planned, the teacher said.
Banton said he went to the Maine Department of Education website and learned students can take the test on paper, but the deadline for requesting that is Feb. 4.
“So I’m here before you tonight to let you know as a teacher, I have very serious concerns with use of the iPad for the test. If it’s possible to opt-in for the paper version for this year, it bears consideration,” Banton said.
Webster said he agreed “wholeheartedly. It’s frustrating. Here we have a test that doesn’t work with the tablet iPad. The screen is not big enough. We have a situation you ought to be able to see a graph and question on the same screen,” but you cannot.
A high school math teacher also said her team is experiencing similar issues with math questions on the laptops, that graphics and questions weren’t clear.
The problems have been shared with the Maine Department of Education, administrators said. The iPads are “Maine Learning Technology Initiative state-given device, and this is a state-given test,” middle school Principal Shawn Chabot said. “One would think the two would work well together, but now we don’t have answers.”
Parent Jamie Watson said she’s opting her daughter out of the testing this year in large part because of problems taking the exam online.
“If she were to have the paper version of the test, I would reconsider opting her out,” Watson said. “I’m a teacher. I attempted the Smarter Balanced MEA. It is quite difficult to manage, there’s a lot to look out on the screen.”
That didn’t please Handy, who said the district needs to pursue paper tests for all Lewiston schools or the district opts out.
“The state can say ‘it’s all fixed,’ but show me it is fixed,” Handy said. Or, “we opt out altogether.”
Handy said he can be “a stick in the mud and say, ‘We’re not going to administer it because you have given us a faulty product.’ When an entire school district does that, it puts the state on notice. I have no problem doing that.”
School Committee member Linda Scott agreed, saying Lewiston should opt out of the MEA for a year.
Committee member Tom Shannon wanted to know if opting out was a legal option considering the state requires the test.
Handy said when educators and parents tell them the test isn’t ready, and the state says it is while passing out a list of known issues, “I give the state an incomplete.”
Webster said the state has told the Lewiston School Department it cannot encourage parents to opt out. “The state has suggested that we are playing with fire if we give any indication” leading parents to opt out.
“That’s absolutely ridiculous,” Scott said. “I, as a parent, I am opting out.”
Handy said parents are first teachers. If they believe something is not going to benefit their child, “you have the option. I’m not saying do it. I’m saying it’s your choice.”
Webster said his staff will talk to the Maine Department of Education on Wednesday about the problems and taking paper tests this year.
In other business, Jay Dufour was promoted as assistant principal at Lewiston High School. He was interim assistant principal.
Dufour, who was hired as a dean last year, thanked the committee for its unanimous vote and said LHS has a great team and he’d work “to make Lewiston High School a great place for kids to learn.”
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