Assessment Spotlight, Issue 316

Focusing on the CAASPP System and English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California’s other statewide assessments. For questions related to test administration, coordination, and trainings, visit the CAASPP and ELPAC website .

2025 California Assessment Conference Registration and Call for Presenters Are Open!

We are excited to announce that registration and call for presenters for the 2025 California Assessment Conference (CAC) are open now! This year’s conference will focus on Assessment in Action: Sharing Strategies to Support Student Learning.

Register now to join us in person on November 12–14, 2025, in Riverside, California. This is a unique opportunity for educators to connect, collaborate, and explore effective assessment tools and strategies for improved learning and teaching.

Interested in presenting your local educational agency’s (LEA’s) practices at the conference? Submit your session proposal by 5 p.m. on June 18, 2025.

For more information visit the CAC website .

May Charter School Assessment Coordinator Network Meeting

Register today for the next quarterly meeting of the virtual Charter School Assessment Coordinator Network scheduled for Wednesday, May 28, 2025, from 9:30 to 11 a.m. To hear assessment updates, discuss best practices of assessment coordination, and connect— with other charter school assessment coordinators across the state.

We look forward to your participation!

Recent Updates to the Smarter Annotated Response Tool

English language arts/literacy (ELA) teachers—Smarter Balanced has released 77 new sample responses for ELA performance tasks in the Smarter Annotated Response Tool !

The newly added content includes additional sample responses from grades four to eight, covering opinion, narrative, and argumentative writing purposes across a range of available score points. With the addition of this new content, the Smarter Annotated Response Tool now provides sample student responses for each grade level (i.e., grades three to eight and eleven) and each of the five writing purposes assessed on the Smarter Balanced Assessments for ELA—narrative, informational, explanatory, opinion, and argumentative.

The Smarter Annotated Response Tool is a publicly available website for educators to access student writing samples with scoring annotations and rationales to better understand how student writing is scored on the Smarter Balanced Assessment for ELA. Check it out today!

Register Now! August 2025 - Equivalency and Proficiency Summer Convenings

Registration is now open for this free, half-day, in-person, 2025 Summer Convenings. These convenings are designed to provide timely updates to and collect information from attendees regarding the GED and HiSET exams. The California Department of Education (CDE) invites chief examiners, test site administrators, school counselors, and others with a connection to the high school equivalency and proficiency programs to join us.

Feel free to share this informational flyer(PDF) with others.

Register here for one of the 2025 Summer Convenings happening near you!

Sacramento ‒ Tuesday, August 12

Alameda ‒ Wednesday, August 13

Monterey ‒ Thursday, August 14

Fresno ‒ Friday, August 15

Orange ‒ Tuesday, August 19

Los Angeles ‒ Wednesday, August 20

Jurupa ‒ Thursday, August 21

San Diego ‒ Friday, August 22

April’s Featured Resource in Tools for Teachers—The Clone Challenges: Proving Congruence Through Transformations 

This month’s featured Tools for Teachers resource, The Clone Challenges: Proving Congruence Through Transformations (account required), provides high school teachers with a series of math activities to guide students in proving that triangles are congruent, using transformations. Students will learn how to describe the effect of rotations, reflections, and translations on geometric figures as they progress through the lesson. 

During lesson activities, students work individually and in small groups to investigate images and use coordinate rules to determine congruency. Using the Four Corners formative assessment strategy, teachers can gauge students’ prior knowledge and tap into a list of academic vocabulary to support student progress. Then students collaborate in small groups to complete a captivating activity called The Clone Challenges. While students analyze a series of graphs showing two figures, there are built-in steps for both students and teachers to provide and receive feedback on responses. In a culminating Exit Ticket activity, students are asked to individually determine whether two shapes are congruent and to justify their answer.  

The Clone Challenges: Proving Congruence Through Transformations is a math instructional resource for high school that includes a detailed lesson plan, handouts, supplemental materials, and a teacher’s guide. To view this and other instructional resources, LEA staff need a Tools for Teachers account which can be obtained either through self-registration, described in the flyer How to Self-Register for Tools for Teachers(PDF), or through their LEA CAASPP or ELPAC coordinator.

To receive future CAASPP and ELPAC updates and notifications, subscribe to the CAASPP mailing list by sending a blank email message to subscribe-caaspp@mlist.cde.ca.gov. Are you a new subscriber? For previous Assessment Spotlight issues, visit the California Department of Education Assessment Spotlight web page.