MeTA musings

Members of the Iowa Department of Education’s Assessment Task Force have recommended that Iowa lawmakers adopt the Smarter Balanced Assessments as Iowa’s new state test for public and accredited nonpublic schools starting with the 2016-17 school year.  Iowa students are currently required to complete Iowa Assessments in grades 3-8 and 11 in math and reading to meet state and federal accountability laws. The Iowa Assessments (formerly Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and Iowa Tests of Educational Development) are developed by Iowa Testing Programs at the University of Iowa and used for various purposes in other states as well.

Why do we need new assessments?
"The Iowa Department of Education released a report in October 2013 that was commissioned in March 2013 to align the Iowa Assessments, Form E, to the Iowa Core/Common Core State Standards in Reading and Mathematics. The study compared Form E to a set of standards that were not used to develop Form E." (Source: Iowa Testing Programs)  Yes, you read that right: Our current state standards were not used to develop our current state accountability assessment!  The Iowa Department of Education commissioned a study to "determine the level of alignment between our Iowa Core standards and the reading and math portions of the Iowa Assessments in grades 3-8, 10 and 11."  The nearly two hundred page report released in October 2013 suggests it varies greatly by grade level ranging from under 50% to 100%.  To be fair, Iowa Testing Programs' response questions the study's methodology while acknowledging Form E was not designed to assess our current state standards.  In summary, Iowa school districts are currently in a predicament: we are required to teach state standards while being held accountable via assessments that were not designed to accurately measure the required standards.  

What are the Smarter Balanced Assessments? 
The Smarter Balanced Assessment system, initially designed to align with the Common Core ELA and math standards in grades 3-8 and 11—"includes both summative assessments for accountability purposes and optional interim assessments for instructional use—will use computer adaptive testing technologies to the greatest extent possible to provide meaningful feedback and actionable data that teachers and other educators can use to help students succeed." Smarter Balanced is one of two national assessments being developed to assess students on the common core. (The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is the competing assessment group some states have voluntarily joined.)  In addition to selected response (multiple choice) items, students will complete technology-enhanced items, constructed response items (non-multiple choice), and performance tasks.  Sample Smarter Balanced items and performance tasks are available online and the first operational testing in other states will begin in Spring 2015.

Nostalgia and economic impact: my first reaction
When I first read about the task force's recommendation I was a bit surprised.  I remember taking the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills as a third grade student at South Elementary.  We had to put prop special folders up on our desk to ensure classmates in our pod would not be able to see our answers.  We were required to use #2 pencils and to do our best filling in the bubbles as neatly as possible.  In a way, the Iowa Tests are as much a part of our state as attending the Iowa State Fair or picking up sweet corn in August along the road from a local farmer.   The Iowa Assessments are written by Iowans and administered to Iowa students annually.  Without a doubt, losing this contract would be a negative blow to Iowa Testing Programs at the University of Iowa and an economic hit to Iowa's Creative Corridor.  Like the Iowa Assessments or not, it may be hard for some Iowa educators to imagine administering an assessment that does not include the infamous introduction,

"You are now going to take a vocabulary test. Please find the section for Vocabulary on
page 3 of your answer document. (Pause). Now turn to page 1 in your test booklet. Please read the directions for this test silently while I read them aloud."

• What assessments will students in grades 5, 8 and 11 complete in order to meet Iowa's statewide science assessment requirement? (Will we continue with the Iowa Assessments?  What about social studies, even though it is not required?)
• How will student "growth" be measured using the Iowa Assessments (past) and Smarter Balanced Assessments (future)?  We will be transitioning from "Not Proficient, Proficient and Highly Proficient" to Smarter Balanced Assessments' four achievement levels. (H/T Karen W.)
• Because the Smarter Balanced Assessments will all be eventually be administered online, what type of technology infrastructure (number of devices, bandwidth, etc.) will be needed?
• Will adequate funding be appropriated to school districts to purchase the Smarter Balanced Assessments?  The full suite of summative and interim assessments and the Digital Library on formative assessment is estimated to cost $27.30 per student.  This is compared to less than $10.00 per Iowa student for the Iowa Assessments.
• Because the Smarter Balanced Assessments must be administered during a twelve week window at the end of the school year, how will this impact schools who are used to administering the Iowa Assessments during the fall or midyear?
• How will schools realistically plan test schedules when the assessment is untimed? (Source pdf)
• Given the Smarter Balanced Assessments only measure the Common Core Standards and Iowa has added several additional standards to create the Iowa Core Essential Concepts and Skills, would this transition de-value our state's added standards? 
• How might any changes recommended by state standards task forces during the next several years align (or not) with the required state assessments? 

I subscribe to the Iowa Department of Education's YouTube channel and after listening to the November 2014 edition, I am thankful to have watched this episode.

Under Governor Branstand's Executive Order 83, Iowa will begin this fall regularly reviewing its state K-12 standards:

The review of science standards will be followed by reviews of the other parts of Iowa’s statewide standards, which cover social studies, mathematics, English language arts and 21st century skills. Each review will follow a similar format.

• What impact might this science review have on Iowa's adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards?
  
• One of the selling points to Iowa educators after adopting state standards for the first time in 2008 (and later modifying math and ELA in 2010 to align with the Common Core) was that districts would be spending less time chasing standards documents and more time focusing on quality instruction.  If any of the content standards significantly change in the near future, school leaders around the state can expect to hear an outcry from classroom teachers...and rightly so, in my opinion.  How much will the standards change, if at all?
  
• Will this be an opportunity for our state's science, social studies and 21st century skills to move towards grade-level rather than grade-span standards?
  
• How might this review process (positively or negatively) influence the movement to create state fine arts standards? 

• What will the review process look like and what type of timeline will there be for each content area? (This question will likely be answered in the near future)
  
• How might this process influence the state's assessment task force charged in 2013 to "study the state’s assessment needs and to recommend a new state assessment for public and accredited nonpublic schools"? 
  
• ...and a likely political hot topic: How might this review process impact Iowa's current involvement with the Common Core State Standards?  Presumably, any significant changes to the Iowa's math and/or English Language Arts standards that come out of the review process would require Iowa to change its status as a Common Core state.  Why?  "To allow for some state-level customization, a provision in the voluntary adoption guidelines allows states to supplement the common core standards with state-specific standards, up to an additional 15 percent," however removing standards is not allows. (Source)

If you're active in social media, you've likely seen something along the lines of...

"Fluently add and subtract within 1000 using strategies and algorithms based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction." (Source) 

Iowa Core, Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards
Information I've gathered:

• The idea of statewide standards for Iowa's high school students started in 2005.  Between 2005 and 2008, the work expanded into K-8.  (Source)
• The original Iowa Core essential concepts and skills included math, literacy, science, social studies and 21st century skills.  The skills were broken down into grade bands (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12).  

• In 2009, drafts of the common core state standards were released to the public.  These math and literacy standards were a result of a movement initiated by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers (Source)

• The State Board of Education unanimously approved the common core state standards in fall 2010.  Math and literacy standards previously in the Iowa Core essential concepts and skills were replaced by **grade-level standards shared by forty-four other states.  

• Math: Common Core State Standards (with several additions), **grade-specific
• Literacy: Common Core State Standards (with a few additions) **grade-specific
• Science:  state-specific (however, a task force has recommended Iowa adopts the Next Generation Science Standards), grade bands
• Social Studies: state-specific, grade bands
• 21st century skills: state-specific, grade bands

• Iowa Code currently requires Iowa students to take math, science and literacy Iowa Assessments (formerly Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and Iowa Tests of Educational Development) in various grade levels for federal and state accountability requirements. 
• A task force will/may suggest requirements for a new assessment that is better aligned to state standards. 
• Iowa is a member state of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC).  The Smarter Balanced Assessments are one of two assessments (PARCC is the other) currently being created to assess the common core math and literacy standards.  
• Any new assessment(s) resulting from the task force's recommendations could be Smarter Balanced Assessments, a new form of Iowa Assessments or something totally different (or we could stick with current Iowa Assessments Form E.)  (See Twitter conversation below)
• The task force is scheduled to meet through at least August 2014.
• Smarter Balanced Assessments will be ready for 2014-15, so Iowa school districts would need to know at minimum prior to the beginning of the school year if they were required to use it.  

Here in Iowa, we're fairly new to the "state standards" movement.  We've jumped on board the math and literacy common core movement and have standards for science, social studies and 21st century skills.

One of my roles as district curriculum lead is to help teachers better understand the connections between curriculum, instruction and assessment and how it all relates to state and federal accountability.   We have a few upcoming deadlines in which the state of Iowa is requiring all school districts to move away from historically locally created standards and benchmarks in order to adopt the new state standards.  Like it or not, gone are the days of local control in the area of what each student should know and be able to do!   With this shift comes a bit of anxiety (and rightly so, in my opinion) on the part of teachers across the state.  It may sound something like...

"Oh, no!  I used to teach ________ in Algebra II, now I have to teach it in Algebra 1.  Help!!!"

"Have you read the standards?  How will I ever have time to teach all of this content?"

• There is no such thing as the "Common Core Police,"at least literally speaking. The department of education will not be sending people around the state to visit classrooms for the purpose of ensuring every single state standard is taught.  The "teeth" I've seen in other states (and it appears to be the way Iowa is headed as well) comes from the state assessments tied to the standards.
• Given that assessments are the built-in accountability measure for ensuring students learn the state standards, it is reasonable to suggest that not all state standards will be assessed on the standardized tests.  Time constraints realistically limit the number of standards that can be assessed on these instruments.

"If the state standards are truly to be the basis for all instruction in the state, then educators must decide which standards at each grade level are the most critical to be taught.  Since teachers cannot possibly teach all the state standards, let's decide on the state standards that students absolutely must learn and then do everything to ensure students learn these identified standards" (Crawford, 2011, p. 16)