States face a critical decision in the next year: how to assess student learning against new college- and career-ready standards. This decision has important ramifications, because testing and assessment have long had a powerful influence on instructional practice. Thus the assessment that states choose will affect teaching and learning in virtually every classroom. This guide Read more about New Assessments: A Guide for State Policymakers[…]
With pilot tests being conducted and debates raging over Common Core-aligned assessments, new changes proposed for the SAT, and emerging plans for new science assessments, the landscape of educational assessments is changing rapidly. In this month’s issue brief, we have assembled summary information and links that will keep you on the cutting edge. What are Read more about April Issue Brief: The Changing Assessment Landscape[…]
As several of the assessment consortia begin field-testing this spring, public interest and questions are increasing rapidly. We hope these up-to-date one-page summaries of each of the six multistate consortia are helpful in your communications activities. The Comprehensive Assessment Consortia: PARCC http://www.k12center.org/rsc/pdf/k12_center_parcc.pdf Smarter Balanced http://www.k12center.org/rsc/pdf/k12_center_smarter_balanced.pdf Summary of Key Similarities and Differences http://www.k12center.org/rsc/pdf/key_diffs_handout_march%202014.pdf The Alternate Read more about At-A-Glance Summaries of the Six Assessment Consortia[…]
More than 1 million students across 14 states and D.C. have been trying out almost 10,000 test items as the group deploys its pilot exams. During a call with reporters, PARCC officials pushed the same idea as Smarter Balanced and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have done in recent days: Glitches are expected and welcome. Massachusetts Read more about Pilot Testing for Common Core Underway[…]
Last week, the College Board, under the leadership of David Coleman, announced upcoming (Spring 2016) wholesale changes to the format of the SAT, one of the two most common tests needed for students to gain college acceptance. For a few years now, officially every college that accepts the SAT also accepts the ACT, the main Read more about Changes Coming to the SAT[…]
On March 20, the Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed) is hosting a free webinar entitled “Getting Ready for the Assessment Consortia Field Tests.” The live webinar, which can also be viewed as a recording afterward, will be from 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm EST and the panelists will include: Jacqueline E. King, PhD, Director of Read more about Webinar: Getting Ready for the Assessment Consortia Field Tests[…]
Joshua Starr, the superintendent of the Montgomery County, MD, school system in suburban Washington, is no stranger to controversy over mandated testing. This blog covered his past attempt to delay testing aligned with Common Core in order to give his district teachers more time to prepare students for the changes associated with Common Core. Starr Read more about Superintendent to Parents: Upcoming State Tests Useless[…]
Teachers in 18 states and the District of Columbia have new resources to help them prepare their students for upcoming field tests. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers has posted sample test items for every grade on the testing platform students will use when taking the field test later this spring. Read more about PARCC Sample Test Questions Ready for Computer Practice[…]
Much has been made of the discrepancies between American students and foreign students in terms of their performance on key tests of academic performance. There has also been an ongoing argument between two sides of American education policy about whether the results that show American students falling behind are a condemnation of American education or Read more about U.S. States in a Global Context: Results from the NAEP-TIMSS Linking Study[…]
Catherine Gewertz of Education Week has delved into the complicated issue of how testing for Common Core will be administered, and the results suggest that the prices of those tests, while probably fair for what they offer, may prove prohibitive for some states. What we already know is this: “Now that the new tests are Read more about Comparing PARCC and Smarter Balanced Test Costs: Are they prohibitive for some states?[…]
The U.S. is in the midst of an important shift in K-12 education. Nearly all states are beginning to implement college- and career-ready content standards and are in the process of developing new aligned assessment systems to measure whether their students have the knowledge and critical skills they need to be ready for tomorrow’s jobs. Read more about Education Department Seeks Your Input[…]
Value-added methodology is being applied to the evaluation of teachers in tested grades and subjects, but the vast majority of the research on value-added measures focuses on elementary schools only. Secondary grades differ from elementary grades in ways that are meaningful for the validity and reliability of value-added measures for secondary teachers. In a new Read more about Does Value-Added Work Better in Elementary than Secondary Grades?[…]
Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently gave a speech to the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco, California. His remarks addressed the issue of testing, specifically with Common Core implementation becoming ever more imminent. Here are some excerpts from the speech: Introduction: With federal support, 44 states plus DC are part of two Read more about Choosing the Right Battles: Secretary Duncan’s speech at AERA[…]
The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) recently released assessment blueprints and test specifications for both the English language arts/literacy and mathematics assessments set to debut in 2014-15. These blueprints and test specifications will help educators better prepare students for the new online assessments that are aligned to the more rigorous Read more about PARCC Assessment Blueprints and Test Specifications Documents[…]
After two-plus years of work, the Gordon Commission recently released a public policy statement designed to “stimulate a productive national conversation about assessment and its relationship to teaching and learning.” The Gordon Commission believes that now is a “remarkable opportunity to re-conceptualize the purposes of educational assessments.” The Gordon Commission on the Future of Assessment Read more about Assessments for the 21st Century[…]
The Department is currently seeking applications for the Advanced Placement (AP) Test Fee Program and the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program. The AP Test Free Program awards grants to states to enable them to pay all or a portion of AP test fees on behalf of low-income students. Applications are due June 3. The Read more about Education Department seeks Applications for Student Test Fee Waivers[…]