State Board fast-tracks standardized test results
Common Core plan, NCLB waivers and other topics were also on board’s March agenda
Published: April 1, 2012
Expedited standardized test results and a transition plan to implement Common Core State Standards—and for the pupil assessments required for them—were among several developments coming out of last month’s State Board of Education meeting.
The board also granted waivers to 17 districts seeking to exclude high-performing schools from the Open Enrollment Act, discussed options to waive federal No Child Left Behind provisions, and approved for public comment regulations that would allow nonmedical school personnel to administer anti-seizure medication to students with epilepsy.
On California’s Standardized Testing and Reporting Program test results, State Board action should greatly reduce the interval between the tests’ administration and release of the test scores. The lag forces school personnel to plan summer sessions and fall classes without knowing how students had fared on the assessments. Changes in how contractor Educational Testing Service Inc. prepares the tests enable the change.
“Beginning with the next school year, we expect both the California Standards Tests and the California Modified Assessment results to be reported in a matter of days rather than months, making them both more timely and more useful to our schools,” state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said in a press release.
“I’m also pleased that we are moving forward with the transition to new assessments aligned to the new Common Core State Standards, including the creation of an advisory committee that will examine the wide range of tests now given to students,” Torlakson added.
Under Assembly Bill 250, enacted last year, the state superintendent will develop a transition plan from the current CSTs to assessments measuring students’ mastery of the new Common Core standards in English language arts and math, adopted last year. CDE will appoint an advisory committee representing 11 stakeholder groups, including local governing boards, and schedule public meetings around the state between now and mid-May to gather public comment.
Common Core, CAHSEE and other issues
Also regarding the Common Core, the State Board approved a Common Core State Standards Systems Implementation Plan that’s now posted on CDE’s Common Core State Standards Resources Web page. The plan identifies “major phases and activities in the implementation of the CCSS throughout California’s educational system” through 2016. Local educational agencies “should use this plan to develop their own specific CCSS implementation plans in order to meet their own local needs,” it advises. “Suggestions and Opportunities for LEAs” are offered throughout, and appendices provide additional LEA guidance, describe applicable services offered by county offices of education and point to other resources.
In another testing development, the State Board extended an exemption from the California High School Exit Exam for students with disabilities from July 1 of this year to Jan. 1, 2013.
In other action, the State Board:
- Granted 17 school districts’ requests to remove some of their schools from an annual list of “low-achieving schools” under the Open Enrollment Act, which allows students in those schools to transfer out. “Of the 1,000 low-achieving schools for the 2012–13 school year 593, or 59.3 percent, have APIs of 700 or over,” while lower-achieving schools avoided the list’s stigma, according to staff reports. “This was primarily due to the statutory provision that a district could have no more than 10 percent of its schools on the list.”
- Continued its consideration of possible waivers from NCLB. Many states have applied for conditional waivers offered last year by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and 11 states have received them, but estimates of the cost for California to comply with the conditions exceed $3 billion. Superintendent Torlakson has called for the state to seek a “state-defined waiver” under the same federal authority that Duncan is relying on. However, it’s an unusual strategy that observers say would require a more persuasive case than has been articulated so far. The State Board is expected to continue its discussion at its next meeting May 9-10.
- Adopted regulations proposed to allow trained volunteer nonmedical school personnel to administer special medication to students in epileptic shock. A public comment period on emergency regulations was scheduled to end last month, after which the regulations were to proceed to the Office of Administrative Law for final consideration. Similar permanent regulations were also approved, with a comment period expected to end May 7. The issue has been contentious, however. A case now before the California Supreme Court challenges similar provisions involving the administration of insulin to students with diabetes.
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