More than 3 million students in grades three through eight won’t have to take older standardized tests this spring while trying out new exams aligned to the Common Core. Thanks to a long-awaited waiver granted by the Education Department, California doesn’t have to collect and report statewide assessment data in the short term. But advocacy groups think the state should at least use the Smarter Balanced pilot data for something constructive, like informing professional development for the new standards. “If we don’t have that purpose, then it really calls into question what we’re doing here,” said Daria Hall, director of K-12 policy development at The Education Trust.
Shifting to the new Common Core aligned tests may seem like a no-brainer, as it provides more experience to parents, schools, teachers, and students in what the tests will be like once they officially count. That way, the new official results in coming years will more truly represent student performance. But it’s not that simple.
Technically, No Child Left Behind, still the active education law until Congress re-writes it at some unknown time in the future, dictates that students between 3rd and 8th grade as well as 11th graders be given assessments that can be used to document student and school performance. The new Smarter Balanced tests cannot be used for that because they are in a field test stage, the questions still need to be tested for reliability, and there will be inevitable glitches that come with any new test, particularly computer-based tests. So, in essence, the waiver granted recently by the Education Department to the state of California, only the fourth of its kind granted to states, means that California can ignore No Child Left Behind and push on with Common Core.
Duncan and the officials at ED wavered for some time about what to do in this situation, and at one time Duncan said he couldn’t grant the blanket waiver “in good conscience.” But in the end, the argument of California Governor Jerry Brown and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson in last fall’s Assembly Bill 484 won out.
The catch is that that bill dictated that the new Smarter Balanced tests cannot be used for any purpose other than finding glitches in the new testing system to better prepare everyone for the official tests the following year. This is the source of some civil rights groups and superintendents finding fault with the waiver because of a belief that the data from the old tests could still have been used to highlight underperforming schools in need of correction.
So the new testing will begin in coming weeks, and the waiver allowing it represents another crack in the decaying No Child Left Behind legislation.
For more information, please visit: http://edsource.org/2014/crisis-over-california-gets-waiver-for-common-core-field-tests-without-penalties/58576#.Ux8_1oUXdw4
