Illuminate Education and Education Advanced have joined forces in a collaborative partnership to provide educators with support and practical solutions for assessment concerns. The onset of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020 caused significant disruptions in the education world and changed how public schools function at their core. Educators across the country suddenly found themselves making substantial shifts in operations to maintain instructional continuity, despite lacking the advancements necessary to support remote and hybrid instructional delivery models. As fears for student safety shut schools down and prevented in-person attendance, another historical effect of COVID-19 emerged – the ...

The United States Department of Education on Tuesday April 6, 2021 approved in writing a request from the California Department of Education to waive some accountablity, school identificiation, and related reporting requirements for the 2020-21 school year due to challenges related to the Covid-19 pandemic.   Please note that these accountabilty requirement waivers did NOT extend reporting or testing deadlines nor did they waive the administration of any CAASPP, CAST, CAA, ELPAC, or related state tests.  In addition no extension to testing deadlines were issued. You can read the full report below: 

Be an ESSER III Hero: Three Technologies that Facilitate A Successful Return to School On Thursday, March 11, 2021, the first anniversary of the pandemic declaration, H.R. 1319, the "American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021," was signed and became Law 117-2. The ARPA, a $1.9 trillion plan, included an even larger relief package for ESSER III than ESSER I and ESSER II combined, providing $123 billion for schools to tackle learning loss and prepare to reopen in the fall. These funds provide critical assistance to help schools and districts maintain a high-quality learning environment, continue the establishment of innovative learning methods, and combat COVID-19 related learning loss. Our ...

Jason DuBose, MBA, M.Ed. Vice President of Sales - TestHound The holidays have passed us by and the season for testing is upon us. As a testing coordinator, you know what is coming, but even the best among us can get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the new semester and it is easy to let things slip. These five reminders will help new and seasoned coordinators alike set the stage for testing success this season. #1 - Build a Team I consider building a team the most important piece in having a successful testing season. You do not have to bear the testing load by yourself, and if you are to thrive in this demanding role, you need allies. Whether you are a teacher, counselor, assistant pr...

California's Safe Schools for All Plan provides the support and accountability to establish a clear path to minimize in-school transmissions and enable, first, a phased return to in-person instruction, and then ongoing safe in-person instruction.   The Safe Schools For All Hub consolidates key resources and information related to COVID-19 and schools. New resources will be added to the Hub on a routine basis. CA Safe Schools for All This new website for school administrators, staff, and parents outlines the funding, testing, and safety measures the state offers to support safe in-person instruction for California’s kids. https://schools.covid19.ca.gov/

The California Teachers Association (CTA) is calling on the State Board of Education and the California Department of Education to apply for a federal waiver for the English, Math and Science portions of California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) in spring 2021. They've issued a petition: cta.org/takeaction. This year has been extraordinarily challenging for our students. CTA's position is that annual standardized tests – never meant to be administered remotely – would be detrimental to students and of little use to schools. "CTA recommends that to truly meet California's diverse needs, the state must pursue a waiver from standardized testing," said CTA Pres...

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...

 The Data Entry Interface (DEI) is used to enter student responses and scores for the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) and the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC). This video will demonstrate how to enter student responses and scores into the DEI.

The Napa County Office of Education has a position open for Coordinator of Data and Analytics.  Download the job description below!  

The California Department of Education has partnered with the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE) to hold the annual California Assessment Conference on October 6 and 7, 2020, through a virtual conference platform. Details about this professional learning opportunity and registration are available on the conference website at https://www.cdecac.org.

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...

Editor's note:  Still not sure if they understand schools or not.  Keeping students 6 feet apart from each other is clearly not a viable option in schools where 40 students are crammed into a single classroom.  Unclear what resources, if any, will actually flow to schools to enable these recommendations to lead to actual implementation.  But here they are . . . . California Releases Guidance on Re-Opening of Schools Stronger Together -  Published June 8, 2020. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/he/hn/documents/strongertogether.pdf

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...

Take our poll and let us know! https://www.schooldataleadership.org/dashboard/stream/item/6754  

It's interesting how so many news reporters, bloggers, and just average citizens can interpret the same data so wildly differently.  This short and extremely informative video explains why this is true when looking at the COVID-19 Country Data.  Interesting to project this same thinking onto K-12 school data.  Even when we collect it accurately, are we also interpreting it accurately? 

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...

The deadline has not been extended due to the COVID-19 crisis.  You still need to observe Wednesday's deadline to identify next year's ELPAC Coordinators. 

Supporting Schools and Districts Impacted by COVID-19 - Illuminate Education Additional resources from Illuminate. https://www.illuminateed.com/covid-19-resources/

Editor's note:  This message was shared with me today and I'm posting it on behalf of Aeries.  This is a great opportunity to hone your Aeries skills and knowledge during the shut-down!  Hello everyone, To help our users keep their Aeries skills sharp during the current school closures, we are offering all Aeries Academy courses completely free of cost for all enrollments between now and June 30th. It is our hope that making these self-paced online learning courses available for free will help users brush up on their knowledge of Aeries SIS and discover new functionality they can put to good use when they return to their normal daily working lives. Aeries Teacher Academy cours...