Like a rocket where individual components are tested before final assembly and liftoff, the Cheney School District is joining other districts around the nation in implementing the Smarter Balanced assessments for students in grades 3-8 and 11, beginning in the 2014-2015 calendar school year.
The district was part of a select group of schools in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium that took part in pilot testing in 2012-2013 to see how students responded to various items in the assessments, Cheney School District’s assessment coordinator for elementary and middle schools, Cindy Leonard said. The district’s elementary and middle schools were also involved in field-testing last year.
The assessments are currently only for English Language Arts (ELA) and math.
“This is not a new thing,” Leonard said. “To parents it might feel new, but for students, it’s not new.”
The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is a state-led group composed of educators, researchers, policymakers and community groups who joined together to “develop a valid, reliable and fair system of next-generation assessments,” according to information on its website. The consortium was funded through a four-year, $175 million in federal Race to the Top Assessment grant.
Leonard and fourth/fifth grade multiage teacher Celina Brennan said the assessments are aligned with the Common Core standards, but stressed they are not a curriculum. The district still retains control of the curriculum it wishes to adopt, and is not going with a national system when implementing Smarter Balanced, but rather is using a system that employs numerous resources to provide better formative assessment of students’ academic progress.
“It allows us to see are they beyond their grade level or are they several grades below their level,” Brennan said.
Smarter Balanced is a three-tiered system. The first part is a summative assessment test that takes place sometime during the last 12 weeks of school, and will replace the state’s current Measurement of Student Progress (MSP) test.
The second part is interim assessments, which are optional, according to information on the Washington state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s website. These are flexible, non-secure periodic assessments that can be conducted at teachers’ and school district’s discretion throughout the school year.
The tests are computer-based and more accurately chart a student’s level of knowledge on a subject. As the student correctly answers each question, the questions progressively become harder until the student answers incorrectly, then become easier until the student answers correctly again.
The third component of Smarter Balanced is the digital library. The library contains professional development materials, aligned to Washington State Learning Standards, which teachers can access to help with their classroom instruction.
The library also provides an online platform to share teaching experience, essentially what’s working in their classrooms. Leonard said it’s designed to answer three questions about student learning.
“What do they need? What do I have that will move them forward? What do I need to measure where they’re at?” she said.
Kassidy Probert, the district’s director of finance, said costs for the Smarter Balanced assessments and digital library are taken care of at the state level and not passed on to school districts.
Kristen Jaudon, OSPI communications specialist, said the state Legislature set the appropriations for state agencies to pay for the Smarter Balanced system, with Washington utilizing a blend of state and federal funding. It currently costs the state $9.55 per student in grades 3-8 and 11 for membership in the consortium, and $16.50 per student in vendor costs.
Leonard and Brennan believe assessing students takes more than just administering one test. It’s a long process measuring student progress towards career and college.
“We all teach 18 years,” Leonard said. “We just teach them at different stages.”
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
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