Louisiana’s Comprehensive Assessment System

Ensuring Comparability with Other States Louisiana students are just as smart and capable as any in the country. However, academic results have not always afforded Louisiana’s students the opportunities of their peers in other states. Year Assessment Plan, including Comparability Late 1990’s Standards for Louisiana’s state assessments (LEAP) were informed by NAEP achievement levels. However, Louisiana considered Basic to be proficient for the purposes of accountability. 2013 State Board commits to Mastery (Level 4) as the new bar for proficiency. 2015 Louisiana administered intact PARCC forms through an alternate vendor. 2016 Louisiana administered LEAP; could not be more than 49.9% PARCC questions; no cap on percentage of points. Louisiana sought comparability with PARCC states, but also with previous state assessment. 2017 Louisiana administered LEAP. Items from a variety of banks; vast majority PARCC items. Continued commitment to national comparability

Goals of Louisiana's System Purpose Approach High quality, fully aligned content in the shortest form possible Set an instructional vision Hold our system accountable for rigorous reading, writing, and math learning Fully assess the complete scope of standards Reduce assessment times where possible Find and use the best items to build forms Modified, shortened form Comparability Equity that ensures Louisiana students are held to the same expectations as students anywhere Credibility so that parents know results mean the same in Louisiana as in other states Maintain stable scale and cut scores Use admin, scoring, and processing rules Run an external audit Cohesion grade to grade and within a grade Grade to grade students experience the same quality of items and results to monitor growth Within a grade, provide information on progress to mastery in order to adjust instruction Provide K-high school summative assessment Provide aligned diagnostics and interims for each grade

Ensuring Comparability with Other States: Areas Studied To ensure Louisiana’s claims of comparability were defensible, the Department conducted a third party validation by the Center for Assessment. The Center studied four core areas: Areas of Study Finding Test Content: Content of tests was comparable Sufficient match in content and test design Test Administration Administrative policies, procedures and practices consistent with PARCC and 2015 LEAP Scoring and Reporting: Scale and achievement standards were comparable Louisiana and DRC maintained rigorous procedures to ensure accurate and reliable scoring, including aggregation and reporting Psychometric Analyses Analyses were sufficient to create a link between LEAP and PARCC

Ensuring Comparability with Other States: Claims Studied The Center also studied three claims: Claims Studied Finding Results from the LEAP assessments can be compared to results from states taking the PARCC tests. Sufficient evidence to conclude Results from the LEAP assessments could be compared to previous years in Louisiana. Link was sufficient to support claim Results from the computer tests can be compared to the pencil-and-paper form. Only minimal difference; no adjustments needed for reporting

Assistant Superintendent, Louisiana Department of Education Contact Information Jessica Baghian Assistant Superintendent, Louisiana Department of Education jessica.baghian@la.gov