Area pupils take Common Core field tests

Nearly 700 students in Cape Girardeau County schools have taken the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium field test in recent weeks. They are among about 23,000 statewide who have taken the test or will take it.

About 23 states and territories are members of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which is developing assessments aligned with Common Core State Standards, according to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Common Core, part of the Missouri Learning Standards, is a set of language arts and math benchmarks intended to create minimum standards for students across the country.

Sarah Potter, Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education communications coordinator, said the Smarter Balanced tests are part of the Missouri Assessment Program. The American Institutes for Research is the vendor administering the field tests on behalf of the consortium states, and CTB/McGraw-Hill is the vendor scoring the tests, according to DESE.

Smarter Balanced, also a vendor for DESE, is coordinating the writing of the test for Missouri and other states. Tests taken next spring will count toward state accountability ratings for districts, but proficiency levels will have to be adjusted because "we expect scores to be lower," Potter said.

Potter said the 23,000 students are a "pretty large sample size, and we're glad to have that."

"What they're doing now is testing the test, so we're not getting student data back on that. You do an initial biased review on the items and then you have students take the tests and conduct a statistical bias review," she said in the email.

If all female students get a certain question wrong, for example, it is considered biased against female students, she said.

Cape Girardeau public schools communications director Dana Saverino said in an email more than 300 fifth-grade science students have taken the field test and third-grade students at Clippard Elementary School would be taking the English language arts exam.

Saverino wrote that the Smarter Balanced test is similar to the Missouri Achievement Program exam and others, but Smarter Balanced is online and MAP is not. An advantage will be the district can get student performance data quicker, but results from this administration will not be sent back to districts.

Saverino said there are enough computers for students to use, and staff have been willing to adjust their schedules to "make it all work."

There has only been one glitch in the online test, in which a student was unable to log on. Saverino wrote the district contacted the test company to resolve the issue.

Students have not experienced difficulty using computers for the exam. "Our students figured out the test quicker than some adults," Saverino wrote.   

Janelle Pope, principal of Jackson Middle School, said about 350 of her students took part in the field tests over a four-day period.

"I had a little anxiety at first [about being chosen as a field test site] because it was a lot to work through to figure out," Pope said, adding the campus had enough devices and glitches such as server speed were worked out.

Associate superintendent personnel/instruction Matt Lacy noted MAP has historically been a paper-pencil test and Smarter Balanced is an electronic exam, which is new for students outside of high school.

"A few students have definitely said it's a challenging test," Pope added. " ... Also in sixth grade on the MAP, the students don't write an essay, and on this field test they did. I would say that overall there [were] probably a little bit more open-ended responses that the students had to answer ... but our students worked very hard; they certainly took it seriously and put a lot of effort forth. I was very proud of them."

Lacy said questions on the Smarter Balanced test moved beyond rote memorization and into critical thinking. He said the field test gives schools a chance to see what skills students need before they test next year.

Pope said the point of this test is to see whether the questions are valid and how the testing program runs.

"It's nice to have a trial run before you get into a test where this could be tied directly to your state accountability," Lacy said. "These lessons we've learned we'll share with rest of the district to make it a smooth transition next year."

Electronic end-of-course exams will continue for high school students next year, but grades three through eight will take exams online, Lacy said.

Becky Stein, Nell Holcomb curriculum and assessment coordinator, said 28 fourth-grade students were tested in communication arts. The relatively small sample size helped, but Stein said there was a lot of juggling to do, and there will be more when the tests are given districtwide.

The biggest differences between the MAP and Smarter Balanced tests is the time it will take because students work at different paces. Also, students can't take the exam in any room at any time the way they could with MAP because of computer access, Stein said.

Another difference was teachers didn't get the amount of pretest training they did with MAP. Educators had to find items such as the test manual and watch webinars to prepare.

And students didn't take identical tests. Some exams had more questions than others, and some of the questions might have included different wording to ensure they were understood and answered in the expected way, Stein said.

The Perry County School District will conduct field tests May 12 and 13 with eighth-grade English language arts students, said Dr. Linda Buerck, director of instruction and curriculum at the district.

"At this point, we do believe our technology is ready. We currently online test at the high school for all end-of-course exams. We have no or very little technology glitches with our current process and anticipate the same for the CCSS [Common Core State Standards] field test."

Test windows

DESE communications specialist Nancy Bowles said in an email to the Southeast Missourian the field test windows are national. The next testing window is April 26 through May 16 and the last is May 19 through June 6.

Most Missouri schools started testing in late March and will end it in mid-May. Not all schools or grades within each district are involved in SBAC field testing, Bowles wrote. She said 246 districts and 399 school buildings have students loaded into the system. The total number of Missouri students in the system is 46,224.

Only one grade level at a school was selected to participate in the field test.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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