Oklahoma May Fire the Fox Guarding the Education Hen House

– Testing will be moved to independent agency under house bill

A bill just cleared the Oklahoma house to move all public school accountability testing functions out of that state’s department of education and place those responsibilities with a new independent agency.

It’s an idea long past due in Kentucky. The serious inflation on the CATS scores over time probably would have been nipped in the bud if an independent agency ran our testing program.

As long as the Kentucky Department of Education has the conflict of interest inherent in both promoting progress and performing the testing to show it is happening, the threat of inflation remains regardless of any new testing system we implement.