DESE, partners develop revised assessment plan

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and a group of education partners have developed a plan to reduce testing time and costs, giving districts more instruction time.

Although it sounds good to Sherry Copeland, Cape Girardeau School District assistant superintendent for academic services, she would like more detail.

A revision to the Smarter Balance tests to be implemented in the 2014-2015 school year, the assessments in English language arts and math would last 30 minutes, instead of a total of seven hours for

third-, fourth-, sixth- and seventh-graders, a DESE news release said.

Students in grades five and eight would keep taking the full tests in those subjects, plus science, as those are considered the transition grades. Fifth-graders are going on to middle school and eighth-graders to high school, DESE communications coordinator Sarah Potter said. She noted a practice test is available on the Smarter Balance website.

Copeland said the number of end-of-course exams in high school would be reduced, but the release said exams in algebra I, algebra II, English II, biology, government and personal finance would be maintained.

Testing does take away from instruction time, but she said "the problem is that we need authentic assessments to monitor the progress of students." She said teachers have already expressed concerns to her about the new assessments because of their short duration.

"I've seen no data," Copeland said. "We have not seen the tests, so my question would be, can the tests truly be a measure of student progress if it's only 30 minutes. I've not seen the validity and reliability studies on the assessment. It's not that I don't agree, it's just that I need something more concrete because children learn a lot in a year's time."

Communications director Dana Saverino said the district's administrative council, which includes principals and administrative staff, will meet today to go over information from DESE and decide how to proceed.

Michael Muenks, DESE coordinator of curriculum and assessment, said the survey assessments for third-, fourth-, sixth- and seventh-graders will be restricted to anything that can be electronically scored, such as multiple choice, infinite well, drag and drop and short constructive response. In infinite well, numbers, colors and objects can be pulled from a virtual well to answer questions or construct shapes in response to a question, he said.

Constructive response is a short answer.

Copeland said the district assesses student progress constantly.

Under the revised plan, DESE would pay for all juniors -- an average of 65,000 a year -- to take the ACT, the release and Muenks said. This is something Copeland endorses.

The ACT, which has math, English, science and reading sections and an optional writing section, costs $36.50 without the writing section and $52.50 with the writing, Copeland said. She said the ACT is standardized across the nation, so it will give the district a basis for comparison to other states. It also offers the district another way to see whether students are where they need to be and whether the district's curriculum has any faults.

DESE's original budget request was $30 million, Potter said. That request was reduced by about $3.5 million with the revision and it includes an allocation of $4.2 million to pay for the ACT, she said.

Educational groups backing the revised tests are American Federation of Teachers Missouri, Missouri Association of Elementary School Principals, Missouri Association of School Administrators, Missouri Association of Secondary School Principals, DESE, Missouri National Education Association, Missouri School Boards Association and the Missouri State Teachers Association, Potter said.

Smarter Balance is a consortium a several states working on a common assessment, Potter said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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