The latest twists in testing

Charlotte-Mecklenburg third-graders will have a broader menu of reading tests to help them earn promotion without summer school,  assuming the snow-crossed school board approves at a meeting this morning (after snow canceled the Jan. 28 meeting,  tonight's regularly scheduled meeting has been bumped up to 11 a.m. to avoid a repeat).

As you may recall,  districts around the state are trying to put the Read to Achieve law into practice without sending thousands of children to summer school or drowning them in exams. The goal is ensuring that students who move up to fourth grade have grade-level reading skills.

More than 2,500 of this year's CMS third-graders can relax:  They tested at third-grade level on new state reading exams given at the start of this year,  so they don't have to worry about being retained or sent to summer school based on an end-of-grade reading score. The rest,  about 78 percent of the class,  will have these options to demonstrate proficiency:

* MAP tests being given in most elementary schools.

*  Discovery Education reading tests being used at Project LIFT schools.

* Reading 3D tests created by Amplify  (where former Superintendent Peter Gorman went to work).

*  Or the state's "portfolio"  reading tests,  which sparked controversy because they require students to pass quizzes on 36 passages.

Students who don't make the grade on any of these options will have to see if they pass the End of Grade exam.  If not,  they'll have to take summer reading camp to be promoted.

The state granted the request of CMS and 15 other districts,  including Cabarrus,  Gaston,  Hickory,  Kannapolis,  Mooresville and Union County,  to have additional testing options.  But you can see why testing is such a thorny topic in the state,  with Gov. Pat McCrory saying the volume  "borders on the absolute ridiculous."

But former Gov. Jim Hunt, hosting an Emerging Issues Forum focused on teachers, warned against a knee-jerk reaction to overtesting.  He recalled a day when too many were oblivious to how little students were learning.

"The whole issue of testing is one that we've got to do a lot of hard thinking about,"  Hunt said.  "We must figure out whether students are learning and how to help them learn more."

Former CMS leaders in thick of Guilford tablet mess

Peter Gorman and Maurice "Mo" Green,  former superintendent and deputy superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,  are facing questions about their roles in a botched purchase of tablets for 15,000 Guilford County students and faculty,  according to the Greensboro-based Rhino Times.

Gorman

Green left his job as Gorman's deputy to take Guilford's top job in 2008. Gorman resigned as CMS superintendent in 2011 to work for the news division of Rupert Murdoch's education technology company,  now known as Amplify.  That's the company that got a $3.2 million contract with Guilford County Schools to provide the tablets,  which have been recalled after problems with cracked screens,  overheating and exposed wires,  according to various news sources.

Green

The Rhino Times, an alternative weekly that used to have a Charlotte publication, made a public records request for emails between the district and Amplify.  "The emails disclose a close and long-lasting relationship between former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools administrators,"  especially Gorman and Green,  Paul Clark reports.  Former CMS staffers Nora Carr,  Jocelyn Becoats and Cynthia Shah-Kahn,  who now work for Green,  and Robert Avossa,  now superintendent in Fulton County,  Ga.,  were all part of the email exchange about the selection of Amplify,  the purchase of tablets and/or publicity about the purchase,  according to the article.

"The reason the school board got only one choice appears to lie in the complex web of pre-existing relationships between former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools administrators,"  Clark writes.  "The Guilford County school board has a terminal case of Charlotte envy.  Almost everything launched at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools finds its way to Guilford County."

I haven't done any reporting on this situation  --  CMS keeps me more than busy  --  but the article raises some important questions about the process in Guilford and the tactics used to sell and promote educational technology.  I had to grin when I saw that Shah-Kahn had rejected Amplify's attempt to get the district to sign off on a fake quote from Green promoting the company.  "The mo quote is awful,"  she is quoted as saying in an email to Guilford administrators.

Every district in America is spending big bucks on educational technology,  which means every taxpayer in America has a vested interest.  The Guilford mess is a good reminder that it's wise to be cautious,  even when the vendor has a familiar face.