CAA Options: Collection of Evidence CTE Connection December 8, 2006 Rod Duckworth, Director of Career and Technical Education OSPI

House Bill 6475   The Alternative Assessment (as it was called then) was the top educational bill facing the Washington State Legislature during the 2006 session. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate exchanged several versions before it was finally passed in the last days of the legislative session.

The Collection of Evidence  A Collection of Evidence is a selection of student work in a specific content area that the student has gathered over the course of several months. It clearly demonstrates a breadth and depth of the WASL skills and knowledge in the content area. The student work is referred to as a set of “work samples” and each work sample is accompanied by a signed affidavit that it is the student’s work. The work samples are always written products in all of the content areas. They may be on-demand samples, independent samples, or classroom samples with limited teacher direction.

Collection of Evidence Pilot  Over an eight month period, 75 teachers contributed to the development of materials for the Collection of Evidence. They chose 2-5 students and helped them to develop collections. Throughout the pilot, teachers had the opportunity to comment on, revise, and support the development process.  Twenty schools, Skill Centers, and Alternative programs participated  Small/large, urban/rural, affluent/low income, East/West, and ethnically diverse  203 collections were scored by teachers on April 24-25, 2006  As a result of what we learned from the pilot, we have  Refined the submission guidelines, scoring criteria, and administrative protocols  Identified and annotated quality student work samples  Created a handbook for educators to explain the process for implementation  Created a Collection of Evidence book that provides a complete guide to all of the content expectations for reading, writing, mathematics and Career and Technical Education programs

State Board approval in process  OSPI presented to the State Board of Education in May, June, July and August  Based on the State Board’s feedback as well as input from district educators, educational agencies, and the general public, OSPI has improved the COE’s components by doing the following:  Implementing revisions to the content guidelines and administrative protocols to increase clarity and reflect the importance of teacher and student knowledge in the process;  Planning intensive training around the state to build capacity in large and small districts to support student access to the COE;  Applying a set of Professionally Accepted Standards for Reliability and Validity to each part of the COE development including the scoring process and scoring criteria

Guidelines and Protocols  Content guidelines are the “requirements” for submitting a COE. They inform teachers, students and parents how many work samples should be submitted, what kind of work samples are to be submitted, and what state standards will be measured across the collection.  Administrative protocols are the “rules” for submitting a COE. All supervising teachers, participating students, and building principals sign paperwork on each COE to ensure that the work is representative of the skills and knowledge of the student  Upon the advice of the State Board of Education, OSPI staff has moved the first submission date for the COE to June 15, This allows all teachers, including CTE teachers, additional time for training, development of work samples, and implementation between the CTE pathways and content areas of reading, writing, and mathematics.

Scoring process, criteria and rigor  Students will register for the COE November- January  COEs will be scored for sufficiency (rules and requirements) and proficiency (meets the standard)  Scorers will use a scoring process similar to the WASL  Scorers use scoring guides that assess the same skill, at the same level of rigor, as the WASL.

Trainings planned for the State  A full schedule of trainings is planned between September 2006-April The trainings are targeted for specific audiences and designed to build expert trainers all over the state. The participants will include:  ESD content staff will provide regional training  Teachers from nine regions will receive an introduction to the COE with materials  District Assessment Coordinators will train on the implementation of the assessment  Teachers who work with culturally diverse students will build culturally diverse work samples  Teachers who work with CTE students will build CTE-specific work samples  All teachers whose students are submitting COEs

Materials and resources for schools  OSPI, in conjunction with teachers from all content areas, have developed publications and support materials that are (or will be shortly) available on the OSPI website. Some of them are:  A “Frequently Asked Questions” document that answers many educator questions about all three CAA Options  A list of CTE industry certificates that may be used to support a student’s COE  Annotated work samples from each content area that demonstrate high to low examples of student work  The COE book that explains the content guidelines and administrative protocols for teachers  An Educator handbook for the CAA Options  PDF copies of all administrative forms for the COE  Example tasks to support teacher work samples in the classroom

Collection of Evidence for CTE Students In Spring 2006, OSPI in conjunction with CTE educators, began working together to build the specific components of a COE for CTE students. The two types of COEs for CTE students are:  A COE using CTE coursework for examples of reading, writing, and mathematics  A COE using CTE coursework along with an industry certificate or credential for examples of reading, writing and mathematics

Trainings for CTE Educators  Two major work sample trainings for CTE educators only.  The two trainings are scheduled for December 2006 and February  Over 200 participants have registered for the workshops.  CTE teachers will produce work samples in the areas of agriculture, health and science, technology, and marketing.