Beginning in the 2014-15 school year, students throughout Michigan will be given an online exam to test their knowledge of core subjects.
The test replaces the Michigan Merit Exam (MME) and the Michigan Educational Assessment Progam (MEAP) in all subjects except social science and science.
Called Smarter Balanced, the exam was produced by The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, a state-led effort to provide consistent and comparable standards, aligned to the Common Core State Standards, in English language arts, literacy and mathematics.
Timeline
- By 2014-15, all assessments will be online.
- All assessments will be given in the spring, with the exception of optional standardized interim assessments during the year.
- Districts will still have paper and pencil option for the first three years.
Benefits of the online assessment
- Scores given within 48 hours of the test
- Fewer questions compared to fixed-form tests
- More accurate measurements of student progress over time
- Assessment tailored to student ability - question difficultly increases when students answer correctly and decreases when students answer incorrectly
- Greater security because not all students receive the same questions
- Retake option available for online only
Disadvantages of the online assesment
- It could take up to 12 weeks to test all students
- Students who take the test later could have an advantage
- School districts will have to invest in more technology
- Test results will likely be shared with the public on a staggered, rather than all at once
Is your district ready?
Smarter Balanced recently released a Technology Readiness Tool for districts to measure readiness to move to an online assessment program. Martineau said only about 6 percent of districts have taken the evaluation.
Want to know more?
Go to www.smarterbalanced.org.
What do you think?
Tell us in the comments area below.
By measuring growth, we'll know better what's working sooner. In a classroom where the teacher is evaluated based in part on growth, a below grade level performer becomes an opportunity to demonstrate growth - instead of a student that continually is rated less than Proficient.
These tests can also give a better picture of how well a teacher or school does in instructing all children, not just students near the average. A standard bell curve would be ideal. A bell curve truncated on the right could show that gifted learners are not being appropriately differentiated for, a concern of many parents of gifted students in our district. Also, as dswan mentioned, this is a better instrument for measuring growth. A struggling student entering third grade reading far below grade level may make more than a year's growth with the right teacher, but the MEAP would not see this growth, penalizing both the student and the teacher for what was actually a success.
All trees grow, but some trees bear 'fruit'. This test makes all the students feel good with some measure of growth progress, but not all students will reach the 'bearing fruit' stage. That's ok, the construction trade needs wood, and trees are needed for that as well. Of course, there are different fruits, and they vary per the area the trees grow in. Also, some areas are not conducive to growth, poor soil or whatever, and those areas will bear very little fruit. In other words, Dearborn has more fruit bearing trees than Detroit, which must have contaminated soil or something, as both areas seem to be spending plenty of money on fertilizer. Perhaps a different pruning method? Grafting? What's your favorite fruit? Apple anyone??
That's a good point. Although there are many jokes in the current system, it's tough to determine which is the biggest. Kids that were once separated from the general population to work on special needs have been merged into the traditional classroom; creating a lower lowest common denominator. What are the benefits/consequences? English language learners are placed in a traditional classroom, and may get an hour with a para-pro. There seems to be no discussion on this topic. I've seen the MAP test used to group kids by ability in an NHA charter school, in combination with class work. For core subjects, students are grouped together by skill in 'rotations.' Rather than teaching 6 subjects, teachers specialize in 3; and the students rotate through three classrooms during the day. For each grade, there's one math teacher, one science teacher, one social studies teacher; and your homeroom teacher does reading/ELA and spelling. I agree that students have a general understanding of where they stack up amongst their peers; but meeting one-on-one with your teacher to understand your weaknesses and set goals, and then follow up on those goals, is quite different than just knowing where you fit in the classroom hierarchy.
Do you really know how your child is doing? If the school's or teacher's standards are too low and your child is acing tests, is he really succeeding? If the school's or teacher's standards are too high and your child is getting D's, is he really failing? Are you viewing his success as relative to others in the school, which may not be equivalent to state, national, or world standards. Our MEAP cut scores were recently drastically altered because kids our state considered proficient were considered not proficient by national standards. How many of those parents thought their child was doing fine because the teachers and the state claimed they were? If your child is behind, do you know how far behind he is? If he is ahead, do you know how far ahead he is? Tests teachers and the state gives don't measure this. If your child flunks a fifth grade literacy test, is he reading at a fourth grade level or a second grade level? The teacher might be able to tell you this. If your kid aces a fifth grade math test, is he ready for math at a sixth grade level or an eighth grade level? The MEAP can't tell you and the teacher probably can't either since he likely has never been given math tests for those grades. We can have a sense of where our children are at, but appropriate testing can help pinpoint where they actually are and confirm or correct our estimates.
http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-danville-high-school-students-on-the-cutting-edge-of-learning-20120426,0,3211774.column http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-07-05-grade-held-back_N.htm
Parents often struggle in determining where their kids are academically. For many, their child is the primary exposure they have had to a child meeting various benchmarks, so their child is the 'normal'. If you haven't read anything by Stephanie Tolan, I highly recommend starting with her Open Letter to Parents, Teachers and Others:From Parents of an Exceptionally Gifted Child. http://www.stephanietolan.com/open_letter.htm She is now well-known in the field of gifted education, but she didn't have a clue at first about her son's strengths or what he was capable academically. Like you, I also strongly believe parents are the primary educators of their children. Unfortunately, I think you and I are in the minority, as many parents have willingly ceded this over to the schools. However, I still look forward to having tests that help fill out the picture.
People often wonder how technology may be used to improve education. Why the non-essay portion of the test isn't available the next day is ridiculous.
I wish there were more people in our school district (Riverview) that thought like you! My twin daughters are going into 3rd grade this year and are very advanced, but are forced to work at the same level as everyone else in their classrooms. With 28+ students per class and no parent participation or "helpers" in the room, the teachers are forced to teach to the lower level students, and those who are advanced are left to fend for themselves. I was actually told by my daughter's teacher this year at conferences "They are so well rounded with all of the activities that they do (hockey, swim team, acting, etc.)... why push them?!" Really?! My question is... Why not?! They are at the age right now that they actually enjoy learning. If we let them be bored now, they will lose that enthusiasm and motivation and start to care less and less. I just don't understand how it is fair to these children to just let them fall by the wayside.
For 2012 test