Index of archived SBAC e-mail updates
SBAC CDE News
- Upcoming Small Scale Trials
- Governing States Advance Development of Common Core Assessment System
- Upcoming Small Scale Trials — This fall, SBAC will be conducting small scale trials of new assessment items in a sample of schools across member states. The small scale trials will inform automated and human scoring for SBAC assessments and will help SBAC prepare for pilot testing early next year. Approximately 225 schools in California have been randomly selected by SBAC to participate in these trials, and the superintendents of districts with selected schools were notified last week. Each selected school will be asked to have one classroom of grade 4, 7, or 11 students participate. Selected districts and schools are encouraged to participate in this important research which provides California educators and students the opportunity to be directly involved in SBAC assessment development activities. While the small scale trials will be conducted in a limited number of schools, all interested schools will have the opportunity to participate in the spring pilot tests.
- Governing States Advance Development of Common Core Assessment System — Last week SBAC held its second Collaboration Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. The conference allowed SBAC work groups and service providers to kick off major projects like test delivery, test administration, and reporting. The conference also brought together state leads and higher education leads to discuss the SBAC progress and the work ahead. In addition, chief state school officers met in a public session and considered several issues related to design and implementation. Consistent with the SBAC state-led governance model, each Governing State had one vote, and states reached consensus on the following issues:
- Governing States approved the process for developing preliminary achievement level descriptors (ALDs), the text statements that articulate levels of progress toward mastery of the Common Core and provide clear explanations of performance for parents, educators, and policymakers. Draft ALDs will be available for public feedback during a four-month comment period later this year. Preliminary ALDs are expected to be finalized by March 2013.
- Governing States voted to move forward to create an organizational plan in partnership with the Council of Chief State Schools Officers (CCSSO), subject to the acquisition of funding. The goal of this project is to provide a road map for SBAC after grant funding from the Race to the Top Assessment Program ends in September 2014.
- Chief state school officers approved a sampling plan for the Pilot Test in early 2013. The Pilot Test will include more than 10,000 items and performance tasks currently under development and will provide information about how these items and tasks perform in a real-world setting. Participation in the Pilot Test will be open to all schools in the Consortium. To ensure that all student populations are represented, results from a statistical sample of approximately two million students will be analyzed. The Chiefs and their representatives approved a plan to sample an equal percentage of students from all Governing States.
More information is available in an article from THE Journal
.
SBAC CDE Resources
- Join the SBAC CDE electronic mailing list by sending a blank e-mail to subscribe-sbac@mlist.cde.ca.gov.
- To receive Common Core State Standards CDE Updates via e-mail notification, subscribe to the from CDE listserv by sending a blank message to join-commoncore@mlist.cde.ca.gov.
- SBAC CDE Web site — The Smarter Balanced CDE Web site includes access to archived SBAC CDE Updates, resources, and presentations.
- SBAC External Web site — The Smarter Balanced external Web site
showcases the SBAC work
and provides frequent updates on activities, milestones, and events.
- Smarter News, the SBAC's monthly eNewsletter
— Smarter Balanced
provides monthly updates on the development of the Smarter Balanced assessment
system and activities in member states.
- SBAC is on Twitter — Follow @SmarterBalanced to get resources and links to the latest SBAC news.
- New Resources and Webinars on Standards and Assessments—Student Achievement
Partners released ready-to-use professional development modules to assist educators in the implementation of the Common
Core State Standards. These modules contain resources for educators, including
research, discussion topics, activities, web and video tools, and more.
- SBAC Update Webinar
— A recently recorded webinar with Joe Willhoft provides an overview of the Consortium’s work and upcoming milestones. The 30-minute presentation covers progress on test design and development; special populations; technology infrastructure; procurement; and collaboration and partnerships.
SBAC Question/Answer of the Week
Q: Will there be a standards-based report card for students, schools, and districts?
A: SBAC is developing a secure, online reporting system that will provide assessment results to students, parents, teachers, and administrators. The reports — differentiated by audience — will show student achievement and progress toward college and career readiness as measured by the claims in English language arts (ELA)/literacy and mathematics, which are aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Information about the claims is available in the SBAC ELA/Literacy and Mathematics Content Specifications
. Reports will likely provide more detailed information at the classroom and school level. For example, on the writing claim, it may be difficult to report sub-scores within writing — such as organization or style — at the student level, but it may be possible to do so across a larger number of students at classroom or school level.
