State seeks your input on name for student test

By Shawn Cetrone - Shawn Cetrone

E-Mail

Comments (0)

Text Size:

tool goes here

South Carolina's new standardized test for public school students needs a name.

And residents can vote on it.

The S.C. Department of Education offers five selections:

PAL -- Palmetto Assessment of Learning

PASS -- Palmetto Assessment of State Standards

SCYE -- South Carolina Yearly Evaluation

STARS -- State Test of Achievement and Readiness for Success

STEP -- State Test of Educational Progress

The department has created a Web site where people can vote.

The new test will replace the PACT, or Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test, which S.C. students in third through eighth grades have taken yearly since 1999. It's intended to measure student achievement. The department of education publishes PACT results in district and school report cards. The scores are also used to determine whether S.C. schools meet federal standards set by the No Child Left Behind school reform law.

The replacement test, which students will take in May, includes a new writing portion. The Department of Education says schools will get results sooner because the multiple-choice portion will be easier to score than the PACT.

Rex invited students, parents and teachers to suggest names for the new test. Education officials whittled the bunch to five.

Some didn't make the final cut:

SWEPT -- So We Ended PACT Testing

SALSA -- State Assessment of Learning and Student Achievement

TNT -- The New Test

The deadline is 5 p.m. Sept. 1. State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex will announce the new name on Sept. 3.