EDUCATORS GATHER ON STANDARDS

SIKESTON -- Southeast Missouri educators met in Sikeston Friday to discuss the social studies portion of the new performance-based assessments standards for Missouri students.

Eighty-six social studies teachers attended the meeting, which was held at Sikeston High School, to voice their opinions about the social studies assessment. Bob Depro, Sikeston schools social studies department chairman and a member of the statewide test development committee, led the meeting.

"This meeting was held to get input from teachers; suggestions and criticisms," he said. "We're drawing up a framework that the people who will be developing the test can use. Our job is to come up with what specific types of skills need to be tested."

Legislation known as the Show Me Standards will require all Missouri schools to administer performance-based assessments in math, communication arts, science, social studies, health-physical education and the arts. A math assessment test has already been developed and will become mandatory in 1998.

The social studies assessment will be field tested in 1999 and implemented in spring 2000. Other tests will be phased in on a yearly basis through 2000.

Before the Show Me Standards were developed, students in the fourth, eighth and 10th grades were tested for minimum competencies using the Missouri Mastery and Achievement Test, or MMAT. The new assessments move away from the MMAT'S multiple-choice format and require students to demonstrate their proficiency.

Depro said the social studies assessment will differ from other tests because it will be administered to students in the fourth, eighth and 11th grades. The change was made because the exam will include questions about American and world history, government, economics, geography and political science, he said, and educators felt high school students needed an extra year of coursework to be adequately prepared for the test.

The test will be divided into three sections: 25 percent multiple choice, 50 percent short answer, and 25 percent extended response (essay).

"In social studies the feeling is you need another year to get as much information behind the students as possible," he said. "The more time you can spend on-task the better chance the child has of doing well on the exam."

Depro said teachers at the meeting had both good and bad feelings about the test. The main question about performance-based assessments is what should be considered minimum competencies, he said. Opinion will vary from person to person, he said.

The emphasis on demonstrated proficiency will mean school districts must spend money to retrain teachers and purchase new curriculum materials to support a new style of instruction, he said.

"I think you have to have some minimum gauge of student performance," said Depro. "The question is, What is minimum and what goes beyond minimum? The public has a right to expect us to turn out students that can function as citizens in our democracy. Teachers will have to develop a new approach to teaching to meet that requirement."

The final committee meeting for teachers in the developmental phase will be held Sept. 29. Depro will attend the meeting, where he will hear the results of other regional meetings and help create the final framework for the social studies assessment.