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Title: Oregon Admits Errors on State Math Tests

The Associated Press

SALEM, Ore. (April 6, 2000 7:01 a.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) - The Oregon Department of Education didn't score too well on its own math tests this year. At least five questions, including three on one of its fifth-grade tests, are wrong.

The mistakes varied from mislabeled diagrams to wrong numbers to repeated questions. On one third-grade test, the first question was about a graph - but the state forgot to include the graph.

The state said it won't grade students on the botched questions.

But some educators worry that some students might have had their confidence so shaken by the bad questions that they performed poorly on the whole test.

"For the rest of the test, they're never quite as sure of themselves as they might have been," said Lois Read, a fifth-grade teacher at Scott Elementary in Portland.

In her memo to testing coordinators announcing the errors, state testing specialist Cathy Brown wrote that the department conducted four rounds of proofreading.

"It is frustrating to us that the tests are not perfect," she wrote.

Faith Spencer, a fifth-grader, was in a forgiving mood, even after she ran across the same question twice on her test.

"Everybody makes mistakes," she said Wednesday.

http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500189570-500255134-501302482-0,00.html

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), April 06, 2000