State spends $35M a year on student testing
Published 6:06 am Wednesday, May 3, 2017
How much does the state spend on standardized testing per year? What is the amount of the contract with Data Recognition Corp. and with ACT?
Will the written portions of the LEAP tests, which were computer-based this year for grades 5-8, be scored by hand or computer?
Sydni Dunn, spokeswoman for the state Department of Education, said the state spends about $35 million on testing.
The assessments — taken, Dunn said, by “nearly 700,000 students across 10 grade levels and four core subjects” — include LEAP and End-of-Course texts, along with ACT exams and the English Language Development Assessment.
“The contract with Data Recognition Corporation is $17,275,610 and covers the administration, scoring, and reporting for students in grades 3 to high school in math, English, science, social studies, as well as special populations (e.g., students with significant cognitive disabilities, English language learners),” Dunn wrote in an email.
“The contract with ACT is $2,505,000 and includes ACT and ACT WorkKeys for grades 11 and 12.”
She said professional readers score the English, math and science parts of the LEAP tests and that both readers and automated scoring are used on the extended-response parts of the social studies exam.
Dunn said the $35 million spent on testing amounts to “less than 3 percent of the total federal and state funding spent on education in Louisiana.”
Sea level rise driven by climate change
What causes sea levels to rise?
“Scientists agree that the changes in climate that we are seeing today are largely caused by human activity, and it’s climate change that drives sea level rise,” reads a page on the Smithsonian Ocean Portal, a website run by the National Museum of Natural History, part of the Smithsonian Institution.
“Sea level started rising in the late 1800s, soon after we started burning coal, gas and other fossil fuels for energy. When burned, these high-energy fuel sources send carbon dioxide up into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide absorbs heat from the sun and traps it, warming the atmosphere and the planet.
“As the planet gets warmer, sea level rises for two reasons. First, warmer temperatures cause ice on land like glaciers and ice sheets to melt, and the meltwater flows into the ocean to increase sea level. Second, warm water expands and takes up more space than colder water, increasing the volume of water in the sea.”
http://ocean.si.edu/sea-level-rise
