BIDDEFORD — Biddeford Schools must wait another week to find out its real high school assessment scores, after a computer error led to unusually low test scores, school officials said.
Measured Progress, the testing company, will re-run the Maine High School Assessment results for Biddeford High School, using 107 more tests, which school officials said were incorrectly coded as “home-schooled.”
Jeff Porter, the district’s superintendent, blamed the error on a technical mishap.
“This error occurred as a result of undiscovered leftover data from our old student data system that became corrupted within our new data system,” Porter said. Measure Progress will take approximately one week to recalculate the numbers with the additional 107 tests, he said.
Earlier this month, Biddeford school officials noticed their test scores were far lower than last year’s.The scores, which are based on reading, writing, math and science, showed 11th-grade students’ proficiency rates were much lower than the state average.
The school declined to give specific numbers, and the Maine Department of Education hasn’t yet posted the results from each district. It will likely do so in the next two weeks, said David Connerty-Marin, the department’s director of communications.
School officials said the missing 107 students were the reason for the large drop-off. The district plans to share the recalculated scores with the school board and public at its Sept. 13 school board meeting.
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