Index of archived SBAC e-mail updates
SBAC CDE News
- Upcoming Pilot Test Information
The SBAC CDE weekly update is an e-mail sent each week to inform California educators and parents of new developments and upcoming events. Please feel free to share information in the update with those who are interested in the SBAC CDE’s work.
- Pilot Test Information — Smarter Balanced will conduct a Pilot Test of the assessment system beginning in February 2013. The Pilot Test will include 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 and will include students from grades three through eight and grade eleven. Additional information about how to participate in the Pilot Test will be made available in early November 2012.
SBAC Question/Answer of the Week
Q:
Why are some of the English language arts/literacy sample items and tasks missing a reading passage?
A: The sample English language arts/literacy items and performance tasks include a mixture of published and commissioned reading passages and sources. Smarter Balanced has not obtained permission to reprint copyrighted passages and source documents referenced in the sample items. As a result, several sample items and performance tasks — Planes on the Brain 1–3, Animal Defenses, and Garden—include only the citations for copyrighted material, rather than the complete text. For the operational assessment in the 2014–15 school year, Smarter Balanced intends to use primarily published passages — reflecting the emphasis in the Common Core on exposure to “high-quality, increasingly challenging literary and informational texts” — and the full text of these passages will be available to students.
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.
- California Districts Selected for SBAC Small Scale Trials — California districts that were randomly selected for SBAC Small Scale Trial are posted on the CDE Web site.
