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Let's Stop Trying to Turn Teachers into Analysts

Jenny Rankin, whose research revealed that teachers drew the wrong conclusion from test data most of the time when using conventional reports.

In ten years, will historians look back at the 30-year effort to get teachers to interpret test data as a failure? I'm impatient. I don't want to wait ten years. Although I'm no historian, here's my verdict. Yes, it was a failure. This long push to make teachers do "data-driven decision-making" has flopped. But of all those who share responsibility for this flop, teachers are the least culpable. Evidence of its failure is everywhere. The tests most teachers favor are the ones they create. Those teacher-created tests often reveal the least about the degree to which students have mastered the subject matter they've studied. State tests are disliked, disrespected and misunderstood. Proof of how...

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Assessment Spotlight Issue #97 - July 7, 2020

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. New Resource! Guidance on Diagnostic and Formative Assessments Today, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond announced the availability of a new resource, "Guidance on Diagnostic and Formative Assessments." This informative document describes how educators can use California's approved assessments to evaluate where students are academically at the start of and throughout the school year. CALPADS and the ELPAC: Changes Beginning July 1, 2020, the California Longi...

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Assessment Spotlight Issue 93 - May 29, 2020

Assessment Spotlight Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Newly Updated Smarter Content Explorer! The Smarter Content Explorer has recently been updated! Offering new features based on educator feedback, this user-friendly web tool combines the information provided in the Smarter Balanced Content and Item Specifications—key resources used in test and item development—into an easy-to-use search interface. Users can access customized content generated by a quick search by subject, grade, and targ...

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Assessment Spotlight - April 10, 2020

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments for Distance Learning With the widespread closure of schools in California and the suspension of CAASPP testing due to COVID-19, many local educational agencies (LEAs) are serving their students through distance learning. To aid teachers and other LEA staff during this challenging time, the California Department of Education (CDE) will make available, as an optional resource, the Smarter Balanced Interim Assessments for u...

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Assessment Spotlight - March 5, 2020

​Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. WebEx for All CAASPP and ELPAC Coordinators—Are You Registered? Calling all local educational agency (LEA) CAASPP or ELPAC coordinators: You asked for more frequent updates from California Department of Education (CDE) staff about assessment-related activities; in response, we are pleased to announce the first CDE-hosted All Coordinators WebEx! This will take place on March 18 at 2 p.m. and will cover updates provided by the CDE as well as a question and an...

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Assessment Spotlight - February 27, 2020

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Summative ELPAC Administration Under Way! Local educational agencies (LEAs) should be administering the computer-based Summative ELPAC, which contains audio files for the Listening and Speaking domains. These audio files are played through the test delivery system and are accessed by students on the testing device. LEA ELPAC coordinators are asked to direct site coordinators and test examiners to use the instructions included in the Directions for Administra...

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Assessment Spotlight - February 12, 2020

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. California Science Test and California Spanish Assessment: 2018–19 Summary Results The 2018–19 summary results for the first operational administration of the California Science Test (CAST) and the California Spanish Assessment (CSA) were made available to the public on February 4, 2020. The summary results are reported at the state, county, district, and school levels by grade and student groups. The CAST and CSA summary results are located on the Californi...

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Understanding Participation and Scoring Rules for the Online 2019–2020 Summative ELPAC

Understanding Participation and Scoring Rules for the Online 2019–2020 Summative ELPAC Dear LEA ELPAC Coordinator: Local educational agencies (LEAs) may be wondering how the transition to the computer-based ELPAC affects how English learners (ELs) count as participated and which students will be scored. English Language Acquisition Status (ELAS) has a whole new importance with a computer-based assessment. ELs will be eligible to test only if their ELAS is "EL." Please work with the LEA's California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System coordinator to ensure all ELAS data is up to date before students begin testing. To count as participated, students must log on to at least one domain in...

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​Assessment Spotlight - Jan 30, 2020

​Assessment Spotlight Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Release of New Smarter Balanced Sample Items and Annotated Anchors Next Week On Thursday, February 6, Smarter Balanced will release more than 100 new items on the Smarter Balanced Sample Items website as well as new annotated anchors for the English language arts/literacy (ELA) assessment. This will be the first release of operational test questions from the summative assessments and will highlight the critical role educators serve in i...

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Assessment Spotlight - January 9, 2020

Assessment SpotlightFocusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments.Calendar Reminder: CAASPP and ELPAC System Downtime Fast ApproachingVarious CAASPP and ELPAC systems will be unavailable from Wednesday, January 8, at 5 p.m. through Tuesday, January 14, at 8 a.m. for a scheduled downtime. During the downtime, the following CAASPP and ELPAC systems will not be available:Test Operations Management System (TOMS)Test Administrator InterfaceCompletion Status and Roster Management SystemData Entry InterfaceInte...

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Assessment Spotlight Issue #72 - December 4, 2019

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Summative ELPAC Assessment Results in the California Educator Reporting System The California Educator Reporting System (CERS) now includes Summative ELPAC results from the 2017–18 and 2018–19 school years. Local educational agency (LEA) staff who have Test Operations Management System (TOMS) logon credentials can enter CERS through the CAASPP Portal or ELPAC Portal to access student assessment results. Over the next two years, CERS will become the single so...

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Assessment Spotlight Issue #68

​Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Science Assessment Implementation Modules! A new resource, the California NGSS 3D Assessment Implementation Modules website, has been developed through a joint effort by the California Science Project, Galt Joint Union Elementary School District, Stanislaus County Office of Education, and Ventura County Office of Education with support from the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association, California Department of Education (CDE), Cali...

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2019 CAASPP Scores Announced

California Department of Education News Release

California Department of EducationNews Release Release: #19-68October 9, 2019 Contact: Scott RoarkE-mail: communications@cde.ca.govPhone: 916-319-0818 SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced today the statewide results of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) summative assessments for English language arts/literacy (ELA) and mathematics. School districts have had access to their own results since May. For CAASPP, performance continues to improve slightly overall within grades as measured by the Smarter Balanced ELA and mathematics assessments. Statewide results in all tested grades showed that 50.87 percent of students met or exceeded standards in ELA, a .99 percentage point increase from 2018 and a 6.87 percentage point increase from 2015. In mathematics, 39.73 percent of students met or exceeded standards, a 1.08 percentage point increase from 2018 and a 6.73 percentage point increase from 2015. Thurmond acknowledged the slight score increases but expressed deep concern that improvement is less consistent across the score range in the later grades of 7, 8, and 11, with a persistent percentage of students of color not meeting standards and, in several grades, showing declining scores from last year. “Disparities between students of color and their white and Asian peers continue from year to year and demonstrate the importance of our priority initiative of closing the achievement gap. Education equity should mean equity for all students and right now, we are not there,” said Thurmond. “All students should have an equal opportunity to succeed academically and enter the workforce prepared with the needed skills to compete in the industries that drive our state forward.” One plan to address disparities that Thurmond supports is working with data experts to interpret the declining scores and evaluate what is causing the results. Strategies can then be identified for how local educational agencies (LEAs) and educators can improve test scores. “The CDE can work with all educational stakeholders to identify strategies and then explore legislative efforts to support the needs of local districts and provide resources to improve test scores,” Thurmond said. Performance gaps have narrowed (based on tracking the same cohort over time and different cohorts over time) in ELA in most grades between Hispanic or Latino students and white students, Ever-English Learner students and English Only students, and Reclassified Fluent English Proficient students and English Only students. The CAASPP Smarter Balanced ELA and mathematics results are the basis for the academic indicator, and the Summative ELPAC contributes to the English Learner Progress indicator of the California School Dashboard. Thurmond reinforced that test results are only one measurement out of many that the state uses to evaluate schools on the California School Dashboard, which allows educators and parents to identify strengths and weaknesses. Schools and districts that are struggling across Dashboard indicators are flagged for state assistance. This is the fifth year of the computer-based tests, which use California’s challenging academic standards and ask students to write clearly, think critically, and solve complex problems, as they will need to do in college and future careers. During this time period, less...

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Assessment Spotlight - October 9, 2019

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. 2018–19 Results Release On October 9, 2019, the California Department of Education (CDE) publicly released the 2018–19 CAASPP results for the following: Smarter Balanced English language arts/literacy (ELA) and mathematics summative assessments in grades three through eight and grade elevenCalifornia Alternate Assessments (CAAs) for ELA and mathematics in grades three through eight and grade elevenThe results can be found on the CDE Public Reporting website....

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Assessment Spotlight Issue #62

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC) and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Survey for LEA Coordinators! On September 17, the California Department of Education (CDE) opened its annual local educational agency (LEA) coordinator survey with a link to the survey emailed to a sampling of LEA coordinators. If you received the email, we hope you will take a few minutes to tell us about the resources and training you need to be successful in your role as an LEA coordinator. This short survey asks about your awareness and use of sever...

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Assessment Spotlight Issue #61

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC) and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Single Sign-on for CAASPP and ELPAC Online Components! All CAASPP and ELPAC systems for the 2019-20 school year became available to California local educational agencies (LEAs) on September 3! We are happy to announce that, by using a single username and password, LEA staff can now access all CAASPP and ELPAC online systems: Test Operations Management System (TOMS)Test Administrator InterfaceInterim Assessment Viewing SystemInterim Assessment Hand Scori...

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CAASPP and ELPAC -- Systems Resume

Dear LEA CAASPP or LEA ELPAC Coordinator: Welcome to the 2019–20 school year! CAASPP and ELPAC systems have resumed operation after they were updated to support 2019–20 CAASPP and ELPAC testing. New Test Operations Management System (TOMS) Interface Both the CAASPP and ELPAC TOMS have transitioned to a new combined TOMS interface. Enhancements and new functionality can be previewed on the System Enhancements web page. Share this information with your site staff to introduce them to the new interface. One notable change is with the credentialing functionality for electronic Student Score Reports (SSRs). It has been updated so that credentials only need to be generated once for the 2019–20 yea...

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English Language Proficiency Assessments for California Monthly Communication

General ELPAC Information Upcoming TOMS Systems Downtime As part of the transition to the 2019–20 school year, the Test Operations Management System (TOMS) will experience downtime from Tuesday, August 27 at 5 p.m. through Tuesday, September 3, 2019 at 8 a.m. The new Test Operations Management System (TOMS) interface will be available on September 3, 2019. During the downtime, LEAs may administer all domains of the Initial ELPAC except Listening in grades three through twelve. LEAs can administer Speaking—Summarize an Academic Presentation by reading aloud the recorded audio script provided in the Examiner's Manual. The Local Scoring Tool and all audio recorded files will be available in MyT...

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Assessment Spotlight for July 31, 2019

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Accessing Individual Student Score Reports in TOMS Local educational agency (LEA) CAASPP and ELPAC coordinators can access, print, or save an individual 2018–19 Student Score Report (SSR) through the Test Operations Management System (TOMS). To download an individual SSR: Log on to TOMS. Search for an individual student. Select the magnifying glass icon in the Actions column. Select the Reporting tab on the Student Profile page. Select the link to the SSR PD...

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