Smarter Balanced Scoring Taking Longer Than Expected in Washington

Posted June 17, 2015

In Common Core Assessment, Common Core Assessments, Computer Adaptive Tests, Education at State Level, National News, Seattle Times, Smarter Balanced Assessment, Washington, Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction

It’s taking longer for the state of Washington to get Smarter Balanced results back and the state’s department of education is stumped as to why.

The Seattle Times reports:

Scoring student responses on new statewide reading and math exams is taking longer than expected in Washington state, and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction doesn’t know why.

Unforeseen issues with the state’s brand new testing system have delayed scoring on some of the new, Common Core-based tests by several weeks, meaning schools won’t have all their students’ individual scores within three weeks after a student finishes testing, like OSPI promised.

“OSPI doesn’t have details about why scoring and score reporting are taking longer than we thought they would,” OSPI spokeswoman Kristen Jaudon said in a prepared statement. “We regret that scores have not been reported as quickly as we had hoped and had communicated.”

OSPI is not sure how many student scores have been delayed or how many school districts across the state are affected. But the delay was big enough that Seattle Public Schools alerted families in an email last week that parents will see their students’ scores on the new tests, called Smarter Balanced, in September — not with their child’s report card in mid-June, when Seattle had hoped to send home preliminary scores.

The district says the delay will make it more challenging to use the scores to identify struggling readers before the end of the school year.

Well one promise of the computer adaptive assessments have been put out to pasture. When you have an exam that requires any writing, short answer, essay, etc. it is going to take longer to score than a multiple choice bubble test. That’s just common sense.

But leave it to Common Core standards and Common Core-aligned assessment advocates to over-promise and under-deliver. I think they have that mixed up.

The post Smarter Balanced Scoring Taking Longer Than Expected in Washington appeared first on Truth in American Education.