By LAURA HAMMACK, guest columnist
During my March Community Conversation, I presented information regarding the various state assessments that are required for administration across the state of Indiana.
The assessment landscape has changed quite significantly this school year with the sunset of the ISTEP+ for students in Grades 3 to 8. Additionally, new graduation requirements for high school-aged students include changes in assessments at that level.
Right or wrong, statewide assessments in Indiana carry significant accountability applications in both state and federal applications.
Accountability assessments in Indiana are “summative” in format. This means that the tests are given to evaluate learning at the end of a school year or course by comparing student performance against a standard or benchmark.
The Indiana Academic Standards apply to all students in a grade level and/or content area. These standards are the “blueprint” for the development of statewide assessments.
Ultimately, when a summative assessment is administered, it is expected that student performance can be compared across students, classes, schools and school districts. Because of this expectation, accountability measures are often developed with this type of assessment as the measure.
One of the biggest changes this school year is the shift from the ISTEP+ assessment for students in Grades 3 to 8 to the ILEARN assessment for students in the same grades. The new ILEARN assessment will be administered during the timeframe of April 22 to May 17. This is a large window of time for test administration and for makeup opportunities. There are several changes that make this assessment very different from the ISTEP+ assessment.
First, for all students in Grades 3 to 8, the English/language arts and mathematics sections are “computer adaptive.” This means that items on the assessment are given based on the student’s response to the previous test item. The difficulty of the assessment will adjust to each student’s skills with the intention that the assessment will give us a deeper understanding of what each student knows and is able to do.
Like the ISTEP+, ILEARN will use a traditional “fixed-form” type of assessment for science (Grades 4, 6, and high school biology) and social studies (Grade 5).
The ILEARN assessment uses a technology platform that is accessible for virtually all learners. This helps in several applications. First, accessibility tools are built into the platform to assist students with accessing content. Second, because of the way in which the platform is designed, there are no time limits for student completion. Last, because of the way in which the test is organized, the amount of student testing time is reduced as compared with previous administrations of ISTEP+.
Another change in the assessment landscape is the implementation of the I AM assessment for students with significant cognitive disabilities in Grades 3 to 8 and 10. The I AM assessment measures student growth using the Indiana Content Connectors, which provide for the Indiana Academic Standards to be accessed. Like the ILEARN assessment, there are additional accommodations and student supports included in the online test interface. Additionally, the I AM assessment only has one test window and there is also a reduction in testing time.
The assessment protocol for high school-aged students is rather complicated during a period of transition. The traditional ISTEP+ Grade 10 assessment will be still be administered during the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 school years. Ultimately, as stipulated within the new graduation requirements, high school students will take a college entrance examination during their 11th grade year and will no longer have to take the ISTEP+ Grade 10 assessment. This approach provides for a single transition from the ISTEP+ Grade 10 assessment to the college entrance exam for both accountability and graduation requirements.
Our educators do a phenomenal job of preparing students for these assessments with a fine balance of exposing students to testing strategies while simultaneously deploying best-practice instructional methodology that does not “teach to the test.”
We know that items measured on a standardized assessment don’t tell the full story of a student’s achievement. Brown County Schools is committed to preparing students for their next step with a comprehensive plan that realizes individual success.
Laura Hammack is superintendent of Brown County schools. She can be reached at 812-988-6601 or [email protected].
