Tag: Smarter Balanced test

Three Bills Signal State of Education Policy

In this year’s busy legislative session, Governor Brown signed 316 of the nearly 800 education-related bills sent to his desk. The bills made relatively small changes on a range of issues from local parcel taxes to school disciplinary policy.

In recent years, a series of reforms—including passage of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), adoption of the Common Core State Standards, and the shift to the new computer-based Smarter Balanced tests—have constituted a significant transition for the state’s 6.2 million public school students. These changes were designed to target K–12 funding for students with the greatest needs and focus teaching on the development of critical-thinking skills. Rather than signing off on legislative changes to these reforms, the governor has opted to continue their implementation while shifting some attention to challenges on the horizon.

A review of the fates of three bills, the state budget, and recent administrative actions helps illustrate the current state of education policy in California:

  • Aligning state and federal accountability rules. Earlier this year, the State Board of Education adopted a new accountability system for evaluating the progress of schools and districts in the eight priority areas—including parental involvement, school climate, and student achievement—laid out in the LCFF. The governor vetoed Assembly Bill (AB) 2548, which would have compelled the state board to align the accountability system with new federal regulations requiring the state to intervene in the lowest-performing 5% of schools. By using multiple measures, the state’s system takes a more holistic view of student achievement. But this approach makes it difficult to assign a number to each school in order to identify those that need the most help—putting it at odds with the federal government. The governor resisted changing course with his veto, but the state may need a waiver to meet the federal requirement.

  • Addressing the teacher shortage. The budget included several teacher workforce initiatives to address the state’s looming shortage, including financial assistance for classified employees interested in teaching and grants to universities encouraging four-year teacher credential programs. The governor signed AB 2248, allowing those with out-of-state credentials to teach English Learners in California. This relatively small change—which addresses one of the subject areas with an acute teacher shortage—stood out in contrast to related legislative efforts that failed, like a bill that would have provided student loan forgiveness for teachers who serve in schools with the most needs.

  • Preparing California’s students for the future. The governor also signed AB 2329, creating a 23-member advisory panel tasked with developing a strategic implementation plan to expand access to courses in computer science—a critical field for the 21st century economy. The plan would lay out the standards for a computer science curriculum and increase the number of computer science teachers, with the goal of ensuring access for all students.

These examples show that as the implementation of major education reforms continues, the governor has focused on making small tweaks to the state’s system and laying the groundwork for the coming years. As California’s leaders look toward the future, it is vital that they build a robust educational system that will be able to address both near- and long-term challenges.

Why Students Found New Tests Tough

Recently the California Department of Education released the first results from the new Smarter Balanced Assessment test (SBAC), the standardized tests that were administered in spring 2015 to public school students in grades 3 through 8 and 11. As PPIC reported in a recent post, educators were not surprised to learn that proficiency rates in math and English language arts fell, relative to prior tests. However, when polled last April, a majority of public school parents (71%) had expected students to do at least as well on these new tests as they did on the state’s previous standardized tests.

There are a variety of explanations for why students did not do as well, but it is as yet impossible to untangle which, if any, is the primary driver.

  • The new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have changed the testing landscape.The test is based on the new standards, which are intentionally more challenging. This would logically lead to lower rates of proficiency.

  • The CCSS have not been fully implemented yet. California is still fairly early in the implementation process, and administrators, teachers, parents, and students are all getting used to the new standards, curricula and materials, and teaching methods. Implementation of any new program takes time. Mike Kirst, president of the State Board of Education, has suggested that full implementation of the CCSS might be completed by 2019.

  • The SBAC test is harder. Both tests rely on multiple choice questions to gauge what students know. The new test also uses open-ended questions that require students to analyze, solve problems, and explain their answers.

  • The test is different than other tests students have taken. It is given online instead of with paper and pencil and it is adaptive rather than the same for all students. This means that if a student answers a question correctly, the next question will be a bit harder but if the student answers incorrectly, the next question will be easier. Students may not be used to using computers for testing and may be experiencing enhanced testing anxiety due to the changes in format and content. In addition, recent PPIC research indicates that not all schools and districts are at full capacity with regard to the computer technology needed to seamlessly test all students.

  • Teachers don’t know what is on the test. Scores on the state’s previous tests may have been inflated because of “teaching to the test,” which reportedly occurred frequently in the old testing regime. With its open-ended questions and adaptive approach, the SBAC test is designed to resist teaching to the test.

California is not the only state to see lower rates of proficiency on the SBAC. Other states, including Connecticut, Delaware, and Washington, have experienced the same phenomenon of lower rates of proficiency. In contrast, Kentucky has seen an increase in its proficiency rates. In some states, even if proficiency rates were low, state policymakers reported being pleased that the results were not as dire as had been expected based on field tests of the SBAC.

The CCSS and SBAC represent a way of guiding California’s K-12 system that addresses shortcomings in the previous standards and tests. Educators have learned that the standards need to encourage teachers to help students use what they learn to answer real-world questions. They also have tried to design the SBAC tests so they no longer drive instruction, but simply provide a snapshot of what students can do. The 2015 SBAC scores represent a starting place for this new regime, and the scores reflect that fact.

College Readiness and the New State Exams

Last week, California released the results of the new statewide tests aligned with the Common Core State Standards for students in grades 3-8 and grade 11. The 11th-grade test—from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC)—is designed to measure whether students are on track to be ready for college and careers after graduation. In fact, the CSU and community colleges can use scores from the test to determine if students are ready for college level courses. The results show that about half of 11th-grade students are at least conditionally ready for college level courses in English and less than a third are ready for college level math courses.

The fact that most 11th-grade students are not yet ready for college is not necessarily news for California. Since 2004, California students have been able to participate in California’s Early Assessment Program (EAP), which used an optional statewide test to determine college readiness levels of 11th-grade students. The college readiness identification component of the new tests is based on the EAP and informs 11th grade students whether they are ready, conditionally ready, or not ready for college.

We cannot directly compare the test results to see if students have improved, as the EAP was optional for all students and the math section was only offered to students in advanced math courses, meaning a large portion of students were untested by the EAP. But the two tests are similar in that they show that a majority of high school juniors are likely not ready for college in both English and math. The new test data does show that a large majority of students are now tested in English and math, meaning more students now know whether they are ready for college level work.

But there is also some good news here for California. For students, new ratings regarding college readiness come early enough for the information to help before they enroll in their 12th-grade classes. Prior research on the EAP suggests that the optional testing helped lower the likelihood that a student would need remediation. Now, because the SBAC test is mandatory, almost all students in California will know whether they are ready for college or need to make improvements during their senior year.

This year, over 90,000 more students than last year were given a rating of “conditionally ready” in English. This will give them an opportunity to avoid remediation in college, by taking a prescribed 12th-grade English class and receiving at least a C grade.

And while it might seem that informing almost 200,000 more math students that they are not ready for college would be discouraging, prior research on the EAP suggests that a “not-ready” rating did not discourage students from enrolling at a CSU. Finally, the SBAC can serve as one of multiple ways for students to demonstrate college readiness. Research suggests that using multiple measures—rather than relying solely on a placement exam—can keep students from being misdirected into remediation.

For the state, the new test provides a benchmark by which to measure future progress and a way to compare across states. Of the eight states that have released test scores, California is 4th and 5th in the proportion of students who are at least conditionally ready for English and math, respectively. As more states release their scores, California will have a clearer picture of how well it is preparing high school students for college on a national scale.

Chart notes: Data from the EAP and CDE websites. The number of students in each category of the SBAC are estimated from the total numbers tested and the percentages given by CDE.