SBAC Scores "Coming Soon" - Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test

Update: I queried OSPI on a couple of SBAC issues and here are their answers (bold mine).

1. Some scores took a little longer to receive from the vendor than OSPI was originally promised. Instead of three weeks, some scores were not available until four to five weeks after students completed their tests.

Many third graders took the ELA portion of Smarter Balanced in March. Some of those students’ scores were available to schools, districts, and OSPI starting in April. 


I don't know when SPS 3rd graders took the test - was it March or later?

2.  This year, for the first time, authorized personnel at schools, districts, and OSPI were able to access student scores by logging into the Online Reporting System (ORS) as students completed tests and those tests were scored and uploaded.
Typically, the earlier a student tested, the earlier a score was available.

Paper score reports put student scores into context of the school, district, and state results. Those final reports could be created, printed, and shipped only after all tests were scored and records reconciliation took place over the summer.

Districts received shipments of final paper score reports by September 10. 


3. It is up to school districts to decide how and when to share student scores with families.
So the district has the scores.  They have had access to student scores online for quite awhile apparently.

I'll send this onto the Board.

From the district:

The state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction is in the process of mailing hard copies of state test scores to school districts.

These are the score reports that show families how students fared on the Smarter Balanced assessments last spring. Those state tests were given in English language arts and math to students in grades 3-8 and 11, with students in grade 10 taking the language arts portion only.

As those printed score reports are received, the district will distribute them to schools, which will send them home to families. We anticipate that families may receive these by the end of September. We do not anticipate that electronic scores will be posted to The Source until later in October.

No matter what the district says, these results are not timely for either teachers or parents.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Apparently the great take over of USA public schools by non-local forces may be failing. -- could anyone have seen this coming?

Most U.S. Students Won't Be Taking PARCC or Smarter Balanced Tests

from June 2014 =>
"If states' current testing plans remain steady for a year, only 42 percent of the K-12 students in the United States are likely to take common assessments designed by the two federal funded testing consortia, PARCC and Smarter Balanced. Fifty-eight percent of U.S. K-12 students live in states that have chosen other tests, or haven't yet decided which tests they're using."

And that 42% number was before Opt-Outs.

This recent OSPI - SPS failure to report results in a timely fashion to families could be explained by _____ ??

Remember Dorn was a big promoter of this SBAC testing as cheaper and with more timely results. Also with Dr. Joe Willhoft (former WASL test man) as SBAC executive director, we would have more access to making this a good test for WA Students said Dorn.

What a large pile of Dung our legislators hurriedly funded and approved in 2010. Kudos to House Education Chair Representative Sharon Tamiko Santos for her leadership in pushing this fiasco upon us during 2010 and 2011.

Dr. Joe Willhoft is no longer executive director... so what did we get?
We got a lot of nonsense that is still continuing.

-- Dan Dempsey
Anonymous said…
SBAC scores were sent to the schools last week. One spreadsheet I saw with scores was created on Sept 1st. I'd grant time to review for accuracy/issues as well, but if the spreadsheets are already in Seattle's hands and being forwarded to schools/teachers why are we waiting for an old school mailing from the state?

Genuinely Confused
Anonymous said…
Genuinely Confused,

Here is my guess...... It takes time to construct the proper spin message to deliver when questions arise. Be patient everything in due time. Look for those results when the spin has been properly constructed and delivered to those in the field.

Remember this =>
"On August 5, the State Board of Education lowered the cut score on the SBAC testing for passing to below the “standard score for proficient”. Then explained that this was done to ease the transition for our system and demonstrate fairness to students. This statement was needed to maintain the dual illusions of fairness and quality in this unfair one-diploma system."

I hope the SPS can spin stuff equally well. Given enough time I think they can do it.

-- Dan Dempsey
Patrick said…
They'll put out a press release November 25 at 4:45 PM.
Lynn said…
Dan,

I don't think that's it. I expect the letters Seattle sends out will look just like these.
Anonymous said…
OSPI sent the results well over two weeks ago so the message is BS.


SPAC ???

Anonymous said…
Lynn -

I'm so sorry I clicked through to read that letter. Now my eyes hurt.

But I won't be getting one! YAY! Beause I opted out my 3rd grader last year, and even though I had my 5th grader take them (b/c who knows what wacky way SPS was going to use them for MS placement), we ended up in private school and the kid is scrubbed from the Source already. Totally gone, not still in the records with a "withdrawn" - so I'm pretty sure no one will be sending me a letter with the kid's 5th grade scores. Too bad, I was slightly curious.

Icked
Anonymous said…
Highline got their results in the mail:

State Test Results are in the Mail
Testing Results We have started to mail secondary students' individual test results to families. As you receive scores in the mail, you may be wondering what these state tests mean for your child.

Use our easy-to-read infographic to learn what tests students take and why they are important. Test results help teachers know what students are learning and who needs extra help or more challenge. State-required tests show if students are meeting learning standards.

To learn more about your child's progress, use these one-page guides that explain learning expectations for each grade level. The guides are available in several languages including Spanish, Somali, and Vietnamese.

Due to the large volume of student test results, we expect it to take several weeks before all families receive their students' results. Students in grades 7-12 will receive their results in mail while elementary students will recieve their results through backpack mail. Please contact the Assessment & Accountability office at 206.631.3004 if you have questions.


SBAC ???
Anonymous said…
And Northshore reporting...

Students' Smarter Balanced Test Scores
In compliance with state law, families of third-graders already received their student’s ELA scores so the district could provide summer reading support to identified students.


SBAC ???
dan dempsey said…
Here are a few articles on the testing mess and the need to end this mess =>


July 22, 2015
Study: Common Core & 2 Testing Consortia Violate Federal Laws, Unlikely to Improve Academic Achievement

"In the wake of the U.S. House and Senate’s passage of bills that would reauthorize the federal No Child Left Behind law, a new Pioneer Institute research paper finds that national English and mathematics standards, known as Common Core, violate three federal laws that prohibit the federal government from exercising any direction, supervision or control over curricula or the program of instruction in the states."

August 31, 2015
Rotten to the core: Big money pushes PARCC and Common Core By Jim Stergios

"PARCC is aligned with the controversial Common Core curriculum, with its emphasis on workplace readiness. MCAS, on the other hand, was aligned with Massachusetts’ own standards, which emphasized a liberal arts education and were regarded as the highest-quality academic content standards in the country. In other words, Common Core emphasizes skills, while the original Massachusetts standards outlined a body of knowledge that all students should master and understand.

John Adams, author of our state constitution, believed that a “free government” required “a virtuous citizenry” and that the moral citizen’s ability to fulfill his (or with Abigail’s help, her) civic role underscored the essential role of education in ensuring and perpetuating the principles of a modern liberal democracy."



Sept. 23, 2015
Pioneer Statement on 2015 MCAS Results and Preliminary, Incomplete 2015 PARCC Results

"In essence, the pilot Massachusetts administration of PARCC during the 2014-15 school year amounted to an opportunity for Pearson, the nation’s largest testing company, to get free feedback on its failing product. There has been little transparency about PARCC which, as a private entity, is under no obligation to release protocols or test questions, as MCAS has always done in accordance with state law. In the past, testing companies paid states and districts to conduct pilot tests.

With every passing day it is clear, as The Boston Globe said several months ago, that PARCC is in a “death spiral.” It began with approximately 26 states and membership is now in single digits. Recently, the Patriot Ledger urged Gov. Baker and legislative leaders to intervene against PARCC.

They are right. Gov. Baker should remove Massachusetts from the PARCC testing consortia."
SPS Mom said…
If I remember correctly, the district said that the hard copy SBAC score reports would be distributed to families in September. I do believe that the schools act silly probably have the individual scored in spreadsheets or some other format, but what they don't have is the ability to print off 500 or more individual reports. I'm guessing OSPI has done a bulk print job and is distributing them to schools who can them distribute to parents. Last spring the district said that the scores would only be available in print copy, not on the source....

Now I don't know why they aren't on the source and I don't know why OSPI couldn't get them printed and to the schools by the first day of school, but that is my guess for why schools probably have access to the scores and parents haven't received them yet.
Anonymous said…
Lynn,

Thanks a lot for the links to OSPI form letters for districts to send to parents. Somehow I'd forgotten that one size fits everything in the Corporate Reform Ed World.

-- Dan Dempsey
SPS Mom said…
Sorry - above "act silly" was meant to be "actually." And should be "scores" instead of "scores" in same sentence.
Maureen said…
Who pays the postage? Who stuffs the envelopes?
Anonymous said…
Standardized tests are not the same as instruction, they are draining instructional hours. So I suppose some lawyer will have to once again sue the legislature to get back the hours for basic education.

Eventually enough fiscally prudent legislators on both sides of the aisle, will have the common sense to see the SBAC as one more useless drag on the already not balanced education budget, and jettison it.

-NNNCr
Anonymous said…



Part 2

If I had to guess, I would say these hard copies were printed by OSPI and then maybe the envelopes were stuffed at the district level. The results were on two, two-sided sheets of paper in full color with some graphics. I'd be curious to know what the printing alone cost. It looked expensive. It looked nothing like the plain WASL or MSP results we've received in the past. I couldn't tell if the third paper, the letter from the district, was the OSPI form letter.

Anyways, the whole thing was just bizarre. It was so strange that they were so possessive of the report they were about to mail out. It was just such a weird reaction to what, in my mind, was a common sense request to review my daughter's report in the meeting. They offered no explanation for why they wouldn't just let my husband and I take it home with us today. It just seemed like a strangely out of proportion level of intrigue and secrecy which just left me wondering what is really going on behind the scenes.


TL;DR
Showed up for daughter's IEP meeting today and even though we were in the same room with our daughter's ready-to-be-mailed out SBAC score report, and even though it seemed like a common sense request, we got the run around when we asked to see the report and although we were eventually allowed to see it, we weren't allowed to take it home. Looked like a pretty fancy, full-color, expensive-to-print, unnecessarily slick report.


-Bellingham Lurker
Anonymous said…
Oops, please delete my "Part 2" comment above. I thought I had posted a "Part 1" but I guess not so just skip it. Thanks.

-Bellingham Lurker
Anonymous said…
We received our 4th grader's SBAC scores tonight at curriculum night - FYI, I'm guessing that will be a common way of distributing.

NE Mom of 3
Anonymous said…
Does anyone know how SBAC scores will translate into scores for Advanced Learning qualification? The test results do not show percentiles, so how do I know if my child meets the cut off for AL qualification (and/or if I may need to privately test for achievement in math/reading)?
Anonymous said…
Oops - last post signed:
NE2
Lynn said…
NE2,

Email the AL office with that question. They told me on Monday that the SBAC research file will be available in mid to late October - at which time they'll be able to calculate the percentiles. What a mess.
Anonymous said…
SBAC ... so why all this testing ??? try this ...

from Valerie Strauss's Answer Sheet..

What one college discovered when it stopped accepting SAT/ACT scores

-- Dan Dempsey

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