2014 Assessment Update Deb Lindsey, Administrator State Assessment

Update Topics Possible legislation on statewide assessment Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium – Spring 2014 Field Test – Educator involvement – Technology readiness – Alignment study WAEA & School Performance Reports (SPRs) – Fall 2013 pilot – Changes to high school indicators PAWS updates – New cut scores – Post-test forensics Optional item bank for district use

Possible Legislation May delay implementation of new assessment system until ; require a task force to study options and recommend best fit for Wyoming – no bill Would reinforce data privacy – SF36 Would move WorkKeys to gr 12, eliminate the former BoE, modify district assessment systems, require 4 years of math in high school, & create framework for educator eval – HB28

SBAC Activities-Field Test Field Test involves over 21,000 Wyoming students in grades Provides experience with processing more rigorous items, technology enabled items, and the online platform & navigation Provides experience in logistics Tests the test and gets Wyoming student performance in the field test data Number of Students by Grade

SBAC Activities: Item Writing 46 Wyoming educators 60 hours of training, including videos and 2 multi-day, in-person sessions Deep immersion into test and item design, Common Core State Standards, and item writing process 300 Wyoming-developed items will contribute to the field test pool

SBAC Activities: Digital Library 50 Wyoming Educators 20 hours of training in formative assessment and instructional practices Additional commitment of approx 40 hours – Submission of resources – Review/rate 12 resources against set criteria Online collection of professional learning and instructional resources, focused on classroom- based, formative assessment resources

SBAC Activities: Alignment Participate in an alignment study to investigate the content validity of the assessment – 12 Wyoming educators – 16 hours of training and review time – Review test items for alignment to Common Core State Standards SBAC Assessment Targets SBAC Test Task Models

SBAC Activities: Tech Readiness SBAC Technology Readiness Tool (TRT) assesses district capacity in – Bandwidth – Number and types of devices TRT first deployed in late May, 2013; by Dec 10, 45 districts had completed the Tool Of the respondents, 89% (40) report that at least 80% of their students can be tested via the existing infrastructure – BUT 44% report that devices don’t meet “recommended” criteria

WAEA School Performance Pilot School Performance Reports (SPRs) were issued in the fall of 2013 SPRs rate most schools in the state – Exceeding – Meeting – Partially Meeting – Not Meeting SPRs report several indicators – Achievement, growth, equity OR – Achievement, equity, readiness WDE has offered training on the SPRs as well as specific training on the growth indicator

SPRs – High School Indicators 2013 pilot used available data 2014 indicators will change for high school only Achievement indicator will use a standardized score, rather than percent proficient Achievement indicator will include English/writing combined score Equity indicator will report grade 11 standardized scores of only those students with low PLAN scores in grade 10 (consolidated subgroup) Readiness indicator will include grade 9 credits attained as well as Hathaway eligibility

PAWS Changes PAWS blueprint necessitates new proficiency level descriptors, standard-setting and cut scores before 2014 results are released CCSS PAWS 2014 PAWS CCSS PAWS

SAWS and ALT SAWS is an entirely new test and will require first-ever standard-setting The ALT at grades 9 and 10 is new in 2014 and will require first-ever standard-setting Test development routinely involves item and bias reviews of newly written items before field testing as well as data review of items that have been field tested

Participants WDE staff State Board Teacher panels Educational Testing Service research & content teams Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) Governor

Communication New performance standards WILL result in lower proficiency rates, since we will be reporting against the 2012 WY Content Standards in English Language Arts and Math WDE expectation is consistent with experiences of Kentucky, New York, and Wisconsin as they made the shift Begin messaging to your constituents that lower reported proficiency rates do NOT mean students know less; it’s that the bar will be higher

PAWS Post-Test Analyses Test security, including appropriate test preparation, administration, and storage, is key to test integrity WDE has an obligation to report valid test results to ensure we can make inferences about student and school performance Violations of test security make such inferences difficult WDE and TAC completed first-ever analyses of PAWS data – Statistically high erasure rates (4 SD above state mean) – Statistically high gains (4 SD above state mean) School/grade/subject combinations with irregularities in 2013 will be reported this week to Superintendents

Formative Item Bank Pilots WDE will issue RFI to obtain info from vendors WDE will host a vendor fair on March 5 for interested district staff Interested districts will procure item banks directly from vendors WDE will reimburse their costs for the school year

Contacts Deb Lindsey, Division Administrator – Steve Marsh, Assessment Supervisor – Jessica Steinbrenner, Assessment Operations and ACT Program Manager – Tammy Schroeder, PAWS-SAWS Development Manager – Pari Swanson, ALT Assessment Program Manager – Bailey Anthony, Senior Office Support Specialist –