ESSA continues requiring a single
state achievement test system beginning in 3rd grade, but it would be up to the states, not the U.S. Dept. of Education, to «decide how to use the testing results to measure and improve school performance.»
Not exact matches
The
state was prepared to use part of its federal Race to the Top money to pay Wireless Generation to develop software to track student
test scores,
achievement and so on, creating a system similar to the Achievement Reporting and Innovation System, or ARIS, that it developed for the ci
achievement and so on, creating a
system similar to the Achievement Reporting and Innovation System, or ARIS, that it developed for the city sc
system similar to the
Achievement Reporting and Innovation System, or ARIS, that it developed for the ci
Achievement Reporting and Innovation
System, or ARIS, that it developed for the city sc
System, or ARIS, that it developed for the city schools.
In its report, Incentives and
Test - Based Accountability in Education, the committee says that NCLB and
state accountability
systems have been so ineffective at lifting student
achievement that accountability as we know it should probably be dropped by federal and
state governments alike.
After years of stagnation in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
achievement began to rise again in the late «90s — particularly in the earlier grades and most notably in math — as
states set new academic standards, started
testing their students regularly, and installed their own versions of «consequential accountability»
systems.
«College and Career Ready» indicators: Many
states already include AP, IB, ACT, and SAT
achievement in their high school rating
systems, and we heartily endorse all of these of these measures, especially those tied to
achievement on AP / IB
tests, which are precisely the sort of high - quality assessments that critics of dumbed - down standardized
tests have long called for.
We know, from work by Eric Hanushek and Macke Raymond, among others, that the adoption of
test - based accountability
systems boosted
achievement in the late 90s in the early - adopter
states.
«The Accountability Plateau,» by Mark Schneider, just published by Education Next and the Fordham Institute, makes a big point: that «consequential accountability,» à la No Child Left Behind and the high - stakes
state testing systems that preceded it, corresponded with a significant one - time boost in student
achievement, particularly in primary and middle school math.
But for Core proponents, the timing couldn't be worse: Just as
states began implementing the new standards, 40
states receiving No Child waivers are also launching new
systems to evaluate teachers, which will incorporate some measures of student
achievement, including, where available, scores from standardized
tests.
To create such programs,
states and districts must identify the most important elements of student performance (usually academic
achievement), measure them (usually with
state tests), calculate change in performance on a school - by - school basis, and provide rewards to schools that meet or beat performance improvement targets — all of which must be backed by
system supports that enable all schools to boost results.
Recommendations for
states, districts, and individual schools include improved teacher training, support for e-learning and virtual schools, stronger technology leadership, a move toward more digital content and away from reliance on textbooks, better use of broadband, and integration of data
systems for such uses as online
testing, understanding relationships between decisions, allocation of resources and student
achievement, and tailoring instruction to individual students.
New Jersey's is a complex and troubled public school
system: although the
state ranks in the top 5 on most nationally normed
tests (NAEP, SAT, ACT), it has one of the worst
achievement gaps in the country — 50th out of 51 in 8th - grade reading, for example.
As I've argued before, the federal requirement that is driving the over-testing concern isn't the mandate that
states test students annually in grades 3 — 8; it's the mandate (dreamed up by Arne Duncan as a condition of ESEA waivers) that
states develop teacher - evaluation
systems that include student
achievement as a significant factor.
Many
achievement tests created and administered at the
state level — such as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment
System (MCAS), the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), or the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) Assessments — use criterion - referenced scoring.
Some
tests, such as the Stanford
Achievement Test, are developed for general use by any school district in the country, while other
tests are developed for a specific
state, such as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment
System (MCAS), and the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS).
To get one of the federal waivers,
states had to submit plans that included adopting curriculum standards geared toward college and career readiness, developing teacher evaluation
systems that incorporated student
testing data and tracking and narrowing
achievement gaps between groups of students.
Vermont is the only
state with a
system of measuring student
achievement that is good enough to be copied by others, a
testing watchdog group has concluded.
Washington's high - risk designation specified that the
State must submit, by May 1, 2014, final guidelines for teacher and principal evaluation and support
systems that meet the requirements of ESEA flexibility, including requiring local educational agencies (LEAs) to use student
achievement on CCR
State assessments to measure student learning growth in those
systems for teachers of
tested grades and subjects.
There was clear agreement that policy makers need to respond to complaints from teachers and parents about too much
testing, about accountability
systems that misidentify schools as being either excellent or in need of intervention, and about
state - mandated teacher evaluation
systems that have consumed policy attention and controversy for little payoff in student
achievement.
are an annual list, going this year to schools that in the 2011 - 2012
state tests either showed high
achievement levels overall or the greatest progress as indicated by the
state's new
system of «student growth percentiles» (SGP).
The
test score issue comes as California's school accountability
system is undergoing a broad revision, as the Brown administration and
state schools chief Tom Torlakson search for more
achievement measures than just
test scores.
If passed, this will take what was the
state's teacher evaluation
system requirement that 20 % of an educator's evaluation be based on «locally selected measures of
achievement,» to a
system whereas teachers» value - added as based on growth on the
state's (Common Core) standardized
test scores will be set at 50 %.
Because they have spent little on developing robust data
systems that can monitor student
achievement and teacher performance means (and thanks to
state laws that had banned the use of student
test score data in teacher evaluations), districts haven't been able to help those aspiring teachers by pairing them with good - to - great instructors who can show them the ropes.
State tests tend to provide results that are too coarse to offer more than a snapshot of student and school performance, and few district data
systems link student
achievement metrics to teachers, practices, or programs in a way that can help determine what is working.
Malloy implemented an extremely prejudicial evaluation
system for teachers, brought in Common Core and its associated
testing (SBAC), crushed the OPT OUT movement, reduced funding for public schools while increasing funding for
Achievement First Charter Schools, increased funding for CONNCan (a private Charter School advocacy group), appointed Stefan Pryor (CEO of
Achievement First) as Commissioner of Education, vastly increased standardized
testing throughout the
state, and tried to abolish of tenure for teachers, all endorsed and supported by Melodie Peters against the wishes of the membership in CT..
With $ 360 million in additional Race to the Top money, it is backing work by
states to design new
testing systems that it says will measure student growth — rather than capture a snapshot of
achievement — supply real - time feedback to teachers to guide instruction, and include performance - based items to gauge more types of learning.
State board President Michael Kirst and other members have made it clear that they intend to replace the API, which calculates a three - digit number based primarily on a school's or district's standardized
test scores, with a new
system in which
test scores would be just one of many measures of student
achievement and school performance.
A key strategy to improving educational outcomes and closing
achievement gaps for children from low - income families is improving
state finance
systems to ensure equitable funding and increased access to resources, according to a new study from Educational
Testing Service (ETS).
These include: · Use of instructional programs and curricula that support
state and district standards and of high quality
testing systems that accurately measure
achievement of the standards through a variety of measurement techniques · Professional development to prepare all teachers to teach to the standards · Commitment to providing remedial help to children who need it and sufficient resources for schools to meet the standards · Better communication to school staff, students, parents and the community about the content, purposes and consequences of standards · Alignment of standards, assessment and curricula, coupled with appropriate incentives for students and schools that meet the standards In the unlikely event that all of these efforts, including a change in school leadership, fail over a 3 - year period to «turn the school around,» drastic action is required.
The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment
System is being dropped by half of Massachusetts school districts in favour of a new
test (PARCC) which the Commissioner of the
state's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said would «help the
state reduce the stubborn
achievement gaps between rich and poor, white and minority, by giving teachers better information about which kids need extra support».
In what will prove a major overhaul of the
state's
system for evaluating the performance of schools, SB 1458 by Senate leader Darrell Steinberg provides that
achievement test results can not constitute more than 60 percent of the value of the Academic Performance Index for high schools and at least 60 percent of the value of the API for primary and middle schools.
A growing number of
state teacher evaluation
systems are focused exclusively on using
tests to measure student growth or
achievement.
Broadening accountability
systems in this way is the practical means by which
states can raise expectations for student learning beyond the basic reading and math skills existing
achievement tests emphasize.
The new law requires
states to design rating
systems that rely heavily on student
achievement, including proficiency rates on standardized math and reading
tests, year - to - year growth on those
tests and graduation rates.
And as
states have overhauled their teacher evaluation
systems, incorporating student
achievement outcomes into their teacher effectiveness determinations, NCLB continues to exclusively consider inputs like
state certification status and licensure
test results as part of its maligned «highly qualified» designation.
Additionally, ESSA requires
states to annually
test 95 percent of students in reading and math, to use the participation rate to calculate the
achievement indicator, and to factor assessment participation into the statewide accountability
system another way.21 For example, four
states — Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Vermont — plan to lower a school's classification for not meeting this requirement.22 In three
states — Illinois, Nevada, and Tennessee — schools that do not have a 95 percent participation rate can not score at the highest level of proficiency; receive zero points for proficiency; or receive an F on the
achievement indicator for the given group of students, respectively.23
Although the bill maintains NCLB's annual
testing regimen in reading and math and public reporting of disaggregated student
achievement data, it allows
states to build their own accountability
systems, which can include measures of student growth.
While
states still have to comply with NCLB's mandate of
testing students in reading and math in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, with ESSA, they would be permitted to set their own student
achievement goals, identify their own academic and non-academic (i.e., school climate, teacher engagement) indicators for accountability, design their own intervention plans for their lowest performing schools, and implement their own teacher evaluation
systems.
Under teacher evaluation reforms, as of 2015, all but eight
states have committed to using an objective measure of student
achievement — such as performance on standardized assessments — as a part of teacher and principal evaluation
systems.40 However, given the challenges of fairly incorporating student
test performance in evaluations, all
states and districts engaged in these reforms must account for factors like the variation in student background and other external influences on performance.
The idea, as foreshadowed in the leadership of
states, is to build a coherent
system of supports to facilitate the implementation of instruction aligned to the content standards: student
achievement tests, performance standards, accountability, align curriculum materials, aligned teacher education and professional development.
The result was a
system where far more students were «passing»
state tests in Mississippi than in Massachusetts, even though the the NAEP ranks those
states last and first, respectively, in student
achievement.
For members of the
state board, this presents the opportunity to redefine school accountability from a
system that was strictly based on standardized
test scores under the federal No Child Left Behind Act to one offering a multi-dimensional look at student
achievement, school culture and college and career preparation.
Congress, in passing the Every Student Succeeds Act in December, required that
states build their school evaluation
systems using three common metrics: high school graduation rates; progress of English learners in becoming proficient in English, and
achievement in English language arts and math, for which California will use the results of the Smarter Balanced
tests in grades 3 - 8 and 11.
Dozens of California school
systems with some of the
state's worst
test scores and biggest academic
achievement gaps won't get any extra help this year under a support
system launched recently by the
state.
The new
system will
test students throughout the year and is supposed to set the
achievement bar even higher for the
state's students.