Running Start Students & Assessments
All Washington K-12 public schools
administer the Smarter Balanced English Language Arts (ELA) and math
assessments in grades 3 through 8 and high school (grade 11). These assessments
are required for federal accountability reporting and replace previous
assessments used in Washington for that purpose. The Smarter Balanced
assessment system was developed to assess the new Common Core State Standards
in math and ELA that Washington has adopted as part of its state K-12 Learning Standards.
See the background material below for more information about the Smarter
Balanced Assessment Consortium.
Per federal accountability requirements, districts are
expected to have at least a 95% student participation rate in the assessments,
including Running Start students; the only exceptions are students who are
homeschooled but who enroll at the district for the sole purpose of
participating in RS. It is the school district’s responsibility to notify RS
students of this expectation; districts are being strongly encouraged to
provide flexible options for these students to be able to take the assessments.
Colleges are encouraged to let schools in their service area
know that if students do have a conflict with a college class it is their responsibility
to make arrangements with their faculty for making up absences or assignments,
if possible. If college faculty or staff members get questions from RS students
about the process, please tell them to refer the students to their assigned high
school counselor or the district assessment coordinator.
You may have heard concerns already about the demands that
the assessment process will place on students’ time. For your information, and to help address
questions and concerns, you should be aware of the actual time requirements as
well as its options for administration. Within the designated time window noted
below the nature of the assessment allows for great flexibility for districts
to coordinate their assessment efforts as resources and student availability
allows:
-
The testing window for administering the
assessments in high schools is March 6 - June 9, 2017.
-
The Smarter Balanced summative 11th
grade assessment is computer adaptive and administered almost entirely online
-
The total amount of time required to complete
the assessments (math and ELA) is an estimated 8 ½ hours (the assessments are
untimed, so the estimates are based on field testing with students);
-
One hour of the total involves a group activity
for each content area (roughly 30 minutes each) designed to provide students
with context for the performance task portions of the assessment;
Going forward, OSPI and SBCTC will be examining other
possible approaches to address the issues at a system level in subsequent
years. For now, we recognize that this first full round of assessments for high
school juniors, including Running Start students, may reveal some unanticipated
challenges. Your patience is appreciated. If you have additional questions or
would like further information about Smarter Balanced, please contact Bill
Moore, SBCTC, Director of K-12 Partnerships, [email protected],
360-704-4346.
Background
Information on the Smarter Balanced Assessment System
Smarter Balanced has
developed a system of valid, reliable and fair next-generation assessments
aligned to the Common Core State Standards
(CCSS), also known as the Washington State Learning Standards in ELA and
mathematics for grades 3 through 8 and high school. The system—which includes
both summative assessments for
accountability purposes and optional interim assessments for instructional
use—integrates computer adaptive testing (CAT) technologies to provide
meaningful feedback and actionable data that teachers and other educators can
use to help students succeed. A digital library of formative assessment
practices and strategies provides materials to help teachers address learning
challenges and differentiate instruction.
Smarter Balanced assessments go beyond multiple-choice questions to
include extended response and technology enhanced items, as well as performance
tasks that allow students to demonstrate critical-thinking and problem-solving
skills. Performance tasks challenge students to apply their knowledge and
skills to respond to complex, real-world problems. They can best be described
as collections of questions and activities that are coherently connected to a
single theme or scenario. These activities are meant to measure capacities such
as depth of understanding, writing and research skills and complex analysis,
which cannot be adequately assessed with traditional test questions. The performance
tasks are taken on a computer (but are not computer adaptive) and take one to
two class periods to complete.
Smarter Balanced capitalizes on the precision and efficiency of CAT.
This approach represents a significant improvement over traditional paper-and-pencil
assessments used in many states today, providing more accurate scores for all
students across the full range of the achievement continuum.
Excerpted from Frequently
Asked Questions: Higher Education,
Produced by the Smarter
Balanced Assessment Consortium,
Available online at
http://www.smarterbalanced.org