ACCREDITATION: LOST MEAP SHEETS - S.B. 787 (S-5): FLOOR ANALYSIS
sans-serif">Senate Bill 787 (Substitute S-5 as reported by the Committee of the Whole)
Sponsor: Senator Bill Hardiman
CONTENT
The bill would amend the Revised School Code to prohibit the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) from assigning an accreditation score or school report card grade for a subject area to a public school if all or some of the school’s Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) answer sheets had been lost by the MDE or a State contractor.
Specifically, if all or some of a public school’s MEAP answer sheets had been lost by the Department or by a State contractor, and if the school could verify that the answer sheets were collected from pupils and forwarded to the MDE or the contractor, then the MDE could not assign an accreditation score or school report card grade to the public school for that subject area for the corresponding year for the purposes of determining State accreditation. The MDE could not assign an accreditation score or school report card grade for that subject area until the results of all tests for the next year were available.
The bill states that these provisions would not preclude the MDE from determining whether a public school or school district had achieved adequate yearly progress (AYP) under the Federal No Child Left Behind Act; however, the Department would have to make every effort possible to work with the U.S. Department of Education to ensure that a public school or the school district was not penalized when AYP status was determined.
MCL 380.1280 - Legislative Analyst: Claire Layman
FISCAL IMPACT
State: The bill would have no fiscal impact on State government.
Local: Since districts that fail to meet AYP under the No Child Left Behind Act must provide certain activities or alternatives (e.g., tutoring, vouchers), a district that otherwise would be labeled as failing to meet AYP due to the misplacement of exams could see savings from this legislation. However, it is impracticable to determine potential cost savings due to the unknown factors of actual future misplacement of exams by the State, how such lost exams would affect the determination of AYP, and the costs of activities a district labeled as failing to meet AYP would be required to provide.
Date Completed: 11-05-03 - Fiscal Analyst: Kathryn Summers-CotyFloor\sb787 - Bill Analysis @ www.senate.michigan.gov/sfa
This analysis was prepared by nonpartisan Senate staff for use by the Senate in its deliberations and does not constitute an official statement of legislative intent.