As Minnesota students complete their year-end Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments and Northwest Evaluation Assessments (aka MAP diagnostic exams), it is important to celebrate the success of the 2011-12 school year.
But since endings often leave voids as to "what's next", readers of this blog would likely appreciate hearing of what the future of educational assessments holds.
Should you lack the time to go there, here are the main points of the linked US Department of Education page above.
A. US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan cited September 2, 2010 as the day marking the beginning of the development of a new and much-improved generation of assessments for America's schoolchildren-- Assessments 2.0.
B. There are two primary educational consortia-- the PARCC consortium, or Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, that have been working with states to develop more comprehensive sets of student assessments.
C. By the 2014-2015 school year, the assessments developed by these two winning state consortia will be in use in any state that chooses to use them-- EVEN STATES NOT PARTICIPATING IN A CONSORTIUM ARE FREE TO USE THE ASSESSMENTS. These are not pilot projects. These are not discrete tests, cobbled together. The winning consortia will be designing and implementing comprehensive assessment systems in math and English language arts.
D. This new generation of mathematics and English language arts assessments will cover all students in grades 3-8 and be used at least once in high school in every state that chooses to use them.
E. All English language learners and students with disabilities will take the new assessments, with the exception of the one percent of students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.
F. In Secretary Duncan's view, these assessments will:
(1) help millions of schoolchildren, parents, and teachers will know if students are on-track for colleges and careers--and if they are ready to enter college without the need for remedial instruction.
(2) give teachers the state assessments they have longed for-- tests of critical thinking skills and complex student learning that are not just fill-in-the-bubble tests of basic skills but support good teaching in the classroom.
(3) help set a consistent , high bar for success nationwide-- instead of misleading students, parents, and school leaders into thinking students are ready for college, when they are not even close.
(4) provide teachers with timely, high-quality formative assessments that are instructionally useful and document student growth—rather than just relying on after-the-fact, year-end tests used for accountability purposes.
(5) make widespread use of smart technology, and provide students with realistic, complex performance tasks, immediate feedback, computer adaptive testing.
(6) better measure the higher-order thinking skills so vital to success in the global economy of the 21st century and the future of American prosperity. To be on track today for college and careers, students need to show that they can analyze and solve complex problems, communicate clearly, synthesize information, apply knowledge, and generalize learning to other settings.
Secretary Duncan called the transformation occurring in assessments a "sea-change" from where things are today, and he noted that the "quiet revolution" known as the Common Core State Standards Initiative is largely responsible for ushering the testing transition in.
May 11, 2011 Update: A key question surrounding the Common Core initiative is whether it truly represents the aspirations of states or stands to be another heavy-handed approach from above that will damage education. For one answer to this question, please consider this statement from Mitch Chester, who is the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education.
Note: See companion piece to this post titled "A United State Standards of Education for America" linkable in Popular Posts at left.
Forty-four and counting-- that is the number of states whose education policy leaders have fully adopted the Common Core State Standards Initiative, which may just be the most widespread education effort yet to garner little media attention for its lack of sensationalism.
Maine, Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, and Illinois-- each deserving of its own "Educational Lighthouse" label-- have all signed on to a "bottom up" effort to create quality standards for our nation's schoolchildren. Assuming you, too, have been affected by this news embargo onpolitical cooperation, here is a Q & A on the CCSSI, for you to learn more about the grassroots educational undertaking that is sweeping the country.
1. What is the initiative about?
The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort to establish a voluntary set of shared standards for English language arts and mathematics. They were designed by a diverse group of teachers, experts, parents, and school administrators to reflect both the aspirations and the realities of students. The standards were informed using evidence and experts from across the country and around the globe, and they will ensure graduating seniors are prepared for college, the workforce, and to compete in the emerging global marketplace.
2. Why is having common standards important?
Common standards breed consistency from school to school and state to state. Common standards allow for sharing experiences, meaningful student performance comparisons, and the better serving of needs for all students.
Standards do not tell teachers how to teach, but they do provide teachers and families a road map of knowledge and skills their students should have, from which teachers can build the best lessons and environments for their classrooms.
3. What has been and will be the Federal Government's role in the CCSSI?
The federal government was not involved in the development of the standards. Since individual states choose whether to adopt these standards, CCSSI is in no way, shape or form a part of the current, or any potentially reauthorized, No Child Left Behind law. In fact, as can be seen from the material in question 6 below, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has been outspoken about the punitive nature of NCLB as it stands, but he is ebullient about the prospects for innovation that CCSSI provides.
Even though the federal government had nothing to do with the CCSSI development, and cannot use them to enforce compliance or do school interventions as in the case of the current rendition of NCLB, it does appear the USDE will assign weight to an individual state's participation in CCSSI through the second round of recently authorized Race to the Top grants and the biennial Title 1 monies it appropriates.
Naturally, this intent to withhold financial support concerns many policymakers, Minnesota's included.
4. One undesirable consequence of the NCLB Act has been its pushing of educators to "teach to the test". Won't CCSSI just encourage more of the same?
No-- CCSSI is meant to build, align and support good curriculum, and yes, quality assessments will be a part of that equation, but a given district or school's performance will not be held against them as in the case of NCLB.
Remember: CCSSI is about rewarding for innovation, not punishing for failure to comply. As you read this, hundreds of professional development teams, curriculum groups, foundations, and private companies are busily constructing instructional packages they hope a given district or state will adopt under CCSSI. Such an expansive effort could not possibly result in students having to pass through the narrow straits of a standardized test.
5. What is Minnesota' position on the Common Core State Standards Initiative?
In June 2009, the Minnesota Dept of Education took an "active role" in the state-led initiative, on the belief that it could help other states create "consistent academic standards as rigorous as Minnesota's."
A September 2010 action by then MDE Commissioner Alice Seagren saw Minnesota signing on to the English Language Arts standards while refraining from Math on the basis that the state’s existing math standards were far superior to those in CCSSI. In 2007 the state had revamped its own math standards by preparing students to take algebra in 8th grade. In support of its decision to opt out of the CCSSI, MDE claimed the number of students scoring proficient in the math had increased 11 percent in the previoius three years.
While key Minnesota officials supported the decision to stay out of the math standards of CCSSI for the time being, others cautioned that doing so might keep Minnesota out of an important national discussion.
An even more important dynamic in Minnesota's standards deliberations has nothing whatsoever to do with CCSSI and everything to do with a teacher evaluation bill currently making its way through the legislature. While key legislators and education officials have vowed to base new school report cards and related teacher evaluations on the best available research about "student growth," the reality is that such a bill may only calcify the much disliked standardized state tests used for NCLB in math and reading.
On top of that, MN Senate File 1030 contains language expressly prohibiting the Commissioner of Education from adopting the CCSSI math standards and those likely to be developed in "science, social studies, technology and information literacy, the arts, and language arts" in the years to come.
6. What does US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan think of the Common Core initiative?
The Secretary likes it a lot. You've probably caught excerpts of comments he has made since assuming the top education post. Not one to mince words, his previous actions on alternative licensure & teacher evaluation have ruffled union representatives and his efforts to lift prescriptive NCLB requirements for schools has likely brought headaches to the number crunchers of his own department.
In Congressional testimony before the House Education Workforce Committee on 3/9/11, Duncan vigorously criticized the current NCLB law as one having "arbitrary state bars" that has created dozens of ways to fail and very few ways to succeed, before declaring:
"We need a common sense law that strikes the right balance between accountability and flexibility ... but NCLB got that backwards. Instead of being tight on goals and loose on the means of achieving them, the law is loose on goals, but tight on the means ... We need to flip that, and states are already leading us in the right direction," the Secretary said.
With this viewpoint from the Secretary as context, listen to the 11-second clip in which the Secretary glows with admiration for the work states are doing in the Common Core initiative.
7. What is Iowa's position, a state with as much productivity from its field of education as from its globe-feeding cornfields?
Iowa ranks with MN in terms of reputation with student performance on the ACT exam and is arguably the home of academic assessment nationwide with ACT, Inc. and its Iowa Basic Skills Tests. Curiously, it has also adopted the Common Core, but by assimilating them into a broader set of state standards.
Through a kind of tapestry approach to its standard development, Iowa may have just found the perfect way to maintain its own standards and stay "in the game" for the procurement of federal funds. According to this Iowa State Board of Education report, Iowa approved the new Common Core standards as part of its Iowa Core standards. After a comparison of the two was performed by Achieve, an independent non-profit organization based in Washington D.C., the Iowa Core and the Common Core were found to have a high degree of alignment. As a result, the Iowa Public School System was able to embed the Common Core standards into its state standards plan going forward.
Using the Hawkeye state as an example, it might behoove Minnesota policy makers to say "we're in" for the purposes of maintaining federal funding support, and then augment its own state-developed standards with those of the CCSSI.
8. Could the hubris that goes with Minnesota's being the "Education State" and the "Do it Our Way" Legislative Republicans be the perfect political combination that keeps Minnesota from taking a major educational step that 44 other states' officials have already taken?
Quite possibly.
For a flavor of the next generation of assessments to align with the Common Core standards, check out these 9 amazing Webinars.
You may also appreciate "A United State Standards of Education for America"-- a companion piece on this blog that conveys the Common Core perspective of Dr. Douglas Reeves, a leading expert on the initiative. To locate, go to "Dr. Douglas Reeves" in the "Labels" column.
8/17/11Resource Addition: See this for gaming fun that enhances financial literacy skills.
The US Department of Education proved it is about more than mandates & testing by reaching out to high school students with a voluntary 2011 financial literacy challenge from March 7 to April 8.
Designed to enhance the financial capability of student understanding in saving, budgeting, and investing-- the Challenge is open to any student (age 13-19) whose educator successfully registers, prepares students, and administers the online exam: Financial Literacy Challenge Registration
From saving for college and retirement to managing expenses like cell phones, the exam tests a wide array of topics that together constitute a basic understanding of personal finance.
This joint Dept. of Education and Treasury Dept. outreach effort is consistent with current NCLB reauthorization efforts whose design is to make competitive grants to states & districts that provide a well-rounded curriculum in financial literacy, as well as environmental education, the arts, world languages, and history & civics.
Later this spring, high-scoring students will be recognized in a national awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. The educators and students who place in the top 20 percent nationwide will receive official award certificates.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan offers remarks about the Challenge in this video:
Beyond the Bubble Tests: The Next Generation of Assessments -- Secretary Arne Duncan's Remarks 
