I started writing this article in mid-October because I wanted to explain some of the changes we have made to our assessment “profile” in fourth grade. I passed it on to a colleague to read and give me feedback on, and it ended up on the bottom of my pile (quite literally, actually.) While some parts are a bit out of date now, (I’ve finished administering the DRAs to students.) I think the information is still valuable. I hope it helps you!
By now, I think most families have heard about the SRBI initiative in our school. (Perhaps not, however.) Put simply, SRBI – Scientific Research Based Intervention – is the term used to describe Connecticut’s implementation of a federal mandate to reexamine and revise how we support all students and how we help them to make the growth they need in order to achieve in school. One element of SRBI is the effective use of assessments to measure student progress.
Of course, assessments are hardly new. We all took tests in school, but the difference is how these tests are made and used. When WE were kids, our teachers gave us tests on, for example, a science unit. But Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Smith may have had two different tests, and one may have been more challenging than another. Even if they used the same test, Mrs. Smith’s standards for grading the tests may have been far more rigorous than Mrs. Jones’s. In either case, a “B+” on one does not equal a “B+” on the other. One test’s “A-” may have been the other’s C+”. This inconstancy made it difficult to compare students’ performance and to discuss student achievement in an objective manner.
Fast forward to the beginning of standardized tests in schools. When I was a child growing up in “the boonies” of New Jersey, we took an annual test called the CAT (California Achievement Test). And when I moved to Connecticut, I was of course introduced to the glory of the Connecticut Mastery Tests, and later on, the Connecticut Academic Performance Tests. These tests are identical for students in a given grade level, and they are assessed in a consistent manner, which allows us to compare data in a valid and reliable way.
There are a lot of mixed opinions about the merits of the CMTs and CAPTs, but there is no denying the advantages of having a standardized, objective measure. (In my mind, the controversy of these tests more surrounds the use of these tests and how we prepare for them and emphasize them, less about the tests themselves.) SRBI encourages us to use similarly objective assessments with our students in an ongoing way.
To that end, we have phased out some of our chapter tests and unit assessments (particularly in reading) and have replaced them with universal assessments, common formative assessments, and other new measures.
To learn more about these assessments, click the “Read the rest of this entry” link, below.
Read the rest of this entry »
