Standards Assessments Alaska Current Reality Handout
STANDARDS
Adopt challenging academic content standards for all students
ESSA Provisions
Adopt challenging academic content standards for all students
- Mathematics, language arts, science
- Aligned to entrance requirements for credit-bearing coursework in the state higher education • Aligned with relevant state career and technical education standards
- States may choose to adopt additional standards for any content area
Not less than 3 levels of achievement
May adopt alternate academic achievement standards for students with the most significant disabilities Aligned with ELA, math, science academic content standards
Adopt English language proficiency standards
- Derived from 4 domains of speaking, listening, reading, writing
- Proficiency levels of English learners making progress in learning English
- Aligned with state academic standards
Current Reality in Alaska
Adopted ELA and math standards in 2012
- ELA = reading, writing, listening, speaking
- Math = content and practices
- ELA, math standards developed with Alaskan educators and stakeholder feedback; more challenging; comparable to other states’ standards • cultural standards
Science grade level expectations adopted in 2006.
- Science standards have not been reviewed to determine alignment to credit-bearing higher education courses.
Adopted standards in other content areas, including cultural standards.
The state does not currently have CTE standards, but is in process of developing them.
The current ELA and math achievement standards include 4 levels (1 – 4, levels 3 and 4 are meeting standards) The current science achievement standards include 4 levels (advanced, proficient, below proficient, far below proficient)
Alaska has adopted the Essential Elements, which are alternate achievement levels linked to the Learning Map and to our AK standards in ELA, Math and to alternate grade level expectations in science for students with significant cognitive disabilities
Alaska has adopted the WIDA English language proficiency standards.
ASSESSMENTS
Implement a set of high quality student academic assessments for all students, all public schools
ESSA Provisions
Implement a set of high quality student academic assessments for all students, all public schools
- Mathematics, language arts, science
- aligned with the challenging State academic standards,
- measure student attainment of such standards in at least three achievement levels
- whether the student is performing at the student’s grade level
- be used for purposes for which such assessments are valid and reliable, consistent with relevant, nationally recognized professional and technical testing standards, objectively measure academic achievement, knowledge, and skills
- do not evaluate or assess personal or family beliefs and attitudes, or publicly disclose personally identifiable information
- be of adequate technical quality
- May assess other subjects
Math, language arts
- In each grade 3–8
- once in grades 9 – 12
Science
- once in grades 3-5
- once in grades 6-9
- once in grades 10-12
Current Reality in Alaska
Current assessment, Alaska Measures of Progress (AMP), is aligned to the ELA and Math standards.
- Not yet peer reviewed for technical quality (technical report available this month and technical advisory committee (TAC) will be reviewing)
- All items reviewed by EED, educators for bias and sensitivity
- ELA and math assessment does not yet measure the full depth and breadth of the standards
- Listening is field-tested this year
- Performance tasks were planned for 2017 to assess writing and math problem solving/practices
- AMP assessments is administered to grades 3-10.
The Alaska Science Assessment is aligned to the science GLEs.
- Peer reviewed for technical quality.
- All items reviewed by EED, educators for bias and sensitivity
- Alaska science assessment is administered to grades 4, 8, 10
ASSESSMENTS
Design: growth, assessing high-order thinking skills, summative or interim, computer adaptive
ESSA Provisions
Involve multiple up-to-date measures of student academic achievement, including measures that assess higher-order thinking skills and understanding,
- may be partially delivered in the form of portfolios, projects, or extended performance tasks
May include measures of student academic growth
At the state’s discretion administered through
-
- a single summative assessment <br/ >OR
- multiple statewide interim assessments during the course of the academic year that result in a single summative score that provides valid, reliable, and transparent information on student achievement or growth
May develop and administer computer adaptive assessments
- Measure student’s academic proficiency on grade level standards
- Growth toward standards
- May use items above or below student’s grade level
Current Reality in Alaska
Measuring higher order thinking
-
- AMP ELA and math assessment item specifications includes depth of knowledge (DOK) measures of 1-4
- ELA and math assessment plan was to include performance tasks (field test planned for 2016 postponed).
- Science assessment does not include high order thinking measures
Growth
- Growth can be measured on AMP ELA and math assessments, but decisions not yet made on how to measure student growth
- a value table was used on previous assessment (SBA)
- growth was not measured on science assessment
Adaptivity
- ELA/Math was planned to go adaptive in the spring 2017 administration.
- Alaska currently administered a summative assessment in a stage format. Stages can be taken all at once or spaced out over any number of days.
- AMP had a stage adaptive design (as opposed to an item adaptive design)
- Adaptive assessments allow for greater score precision, especially for students who score at either end of the scale
- Adaptive assessments require a more robust item bank
- Items require a process to write, review, and field test
- AMP was designed to adjust item difficulty, but not go below grade level (high achieving students would see some items from one grade level above)
- AK Science test was not adaptive.
ASSESSMENTS
Nationally-recognized high school academic assessment option
ESSA Provisions
States may approve nationally recognized high school academic assessments for districts to choose to administer in lieu of the state high school assessment for math, language arts, and science.
- Aligned to state standards
- Equally or more rigorous
- Provides data that differentiates between schools
Current Reality in Alaska
Alaska has given a college & career ready assessment (CCRA) for two years (2015, 2016), as required by statute. It required students to take the SAT, ACT, or WorkKeys assessment as a graduation requirement.
Previously AK required students to take WorkKeys in their grade 11 year.
This statute has been repealed.
Not all schools/communities in AK are able to administer the ACT or SAT test during the school day without a state contract due to the requirements of the vendor.
ASSESSMENTS
Participation; assessment time limits
ESSA Provisions
Allowed: state or local laws that allow parents to decide about their child’s participation in academic assessments.
States may set a target limit on the amount of time devoted to the administration of state required assessments for each grade (percentage of instructional hours)
Current Reality in Alaska
Alaska does not currently have state laws that address parents’ rights about having their child tested. Some districts have local procedures to document parent and student refusal.
2015 was the first year there was a significant issue in AK with participation. The issue was concentrated primarily in correspondence schools and few communities.
Alaska does not currently have a limit on state required testing.
ASSESSMENTS
Accommodations, reports, language assessments
ESSA Provisions
Accommodations required for
- students with disabilities
- English learners
Reports
Produce individual student reports of achievement on math, language arts, science assessments
- interpretive, descriptive, and diagnostic
- allow parents, teachers, principals, and other school leaders to understand and address the specific academic needs of students
- in an understandable and uniform format
- to the extent practicable, in a language that parents can understand
LANGUAGE ASSESSMENTS.— ‘‘(i) IN GENERAL.—Each State plan shall identify the languages other than English that are present to a significant extent in the participating student population of the State and indicate the languages for which annual student academic assessments are not available and are needed. ‘‘(ii) SECRETARIAL ASSISTANCE.—The State shall make every effort to develop such assessments and may request assistance from the Secretary if linguistically accessible academic assessment measures are needed. (English learners required to take the tests in English after 3 years in US schools, with the possible exception up to 5 years on a case-by-case basis. English learners entering school in Kindergarten would be required to test in English in grade 3.)
Current Reality in Alaska
Accommodations
- Our current computer based ELA, math and science assessments offer both universal tools for all students as well as innovative accommodation tools for students with disabilities, ELs, etc.
Reports
- ELA and Math reports for AMP 2015 were not well-received by educators or the public. Criticisms:
- Too much text
- Reading level too high
- Confusing graphs (subscores)
- Not enough detailed information
- Not enough information to know what to do next for student
- Student scores were based on 55 items. This makes reporting out on specific skills difficult to do reliably.
- Reports were available only in English.
Language
Currently assessments are administered in English only.