North Kitsap School District students return to school on Aug. 31.
Along with back-to-school sales in stores, parents also are being greeted this week with the results of the Smarter Balanced Assessments their third- through eighth-graders and high schoolers took in spring.
The tests, which are given in 16 other states and are based on the federal Common Core educational standards, were first administered in Washington in spring 2015. Students in third- through eighth-grades take math and English language tests; a test required for graduation that assesses readiness for college and career is taken by high school juniors but is open to sophomores.
Having set a baseline with the results from the 2015 testing, statewide and local results showed improvement. The state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction announced that testing results showed most grades improving by 2 to 3 percentage points in their scores over the 2015 results; 75.5 percent of the Class of 2017 was college-and-career proficient in English language, up from 26 percent of the Class of 2015; math proficiency jumped to 22 percent from 13.7 percent.
Washington is only one of 14 states that require students to pass math and English language assessments to graduate. The state is on the right side of that standard. Expecting students to attain a certain level of proficiency in math and the English language — a proficiency that prepares them for college and career — is in their best interests.
But the perspective of teachers on the amount of time and effort that testing demands in the classroom is worth considering. The Smarter Balanced test is only one of several tests taken during the school year. The federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which replaced No Child Left Behind, allows states to limit testing as a percentage of classroom hours; districts can offer an alternate high school test that aligns with the ACT or SAT; and states can apply for grants to audit tests for redundancy or low quality.
As confidence grows in Smarter Balanced, an assessment of each test’s value as a measurement tool still makes sense.
