By Lesley Muldoon
It’s been nearly eight years since the launch of the two Race to the Top funded testing consortia, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Since then, millions of K-12 students in the U.S. have taken these assessments or tests inspired by them. In recent weeks, there has been a resurgence of commentary about the contributions of the two consortia, given new research that takes stock of what impact these tests are having on school systems.
• Chris Shearer, Program Officer at the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, recently published a thoughtful perspective on the work of the consortia and where states should focus as they make decisions about state tests in the future. His take? “Survival of the consortia as ‘brands’ may not be as important as the resulting nationwide jump in quality and sophistication they made possible.”
• Analysts at Education First evaluated the state of the state assessment landscape in 2017 through interviews with experts, reporting that more than half of states are not using consortia tests or don’t plan to do so moving forward. In some cases, there are significant questions about the quality of the assessments used by states going it alone. In the next year, more than a quarter of states may experience leadership transitions, and, in more than 20 states, at least one state testing contract will expire. As states face another period of transition, there will be more opportunities for them to make decisions about their testing programs – and we hope they’ll prioritize test quality.
• The National Center for Education Statistics published its sixth report in 15 years comparing the proficiency standards that students need to meet in each state. Using a methodology that allows them to “map” individual state standards onto the scale used by the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), they create an “apples to apples” comparison even among states using different tests. This was the first NCES report in this series since the rollout of the consortia tests, and they found a few important things:
o The standard a student needs to meet to be “proficient” in states administering PARCC or Smarter is higher than in most other states using different assessments. A key goal of the consortia – and the broader college- and career-ready reforms that accompanied the new tests – was to set a bar for proficiency that reflected the academic requirements for college and career readiness, so this is a welcome finding.
o The proficiency standard is rising in every state – even in those states that didn’t use consortia tests. For those who care about educational equity, this is great news. It means that, regardless of the state in which state a student lives, the expectations for grade-level performance are rising and the differences in expectations among states is getting smaller. While there are still substantial differences, this is a move in the right direction.
• Writing for Education Next, Daniel Hamlin and Paul E. Peterson evaluate whether the attrition of states from the consortia is leading to a “race to the bottom” in terms of proficiency standards. Like NCES, Hamlin and Peterson use NAEP as a reference point for various state assessments; they look for differences between the percentage of students who are deemed proficient on the state test v. the percentage from that state who score proficient on NAEP. In effect, they calculate an “honesty gap” between the state’s benchmark for proficiency and the one set by NAEP.
o Their findings are also mostly encouraging: from 2010 to 2015, state proficiency standards rose dramatically as states adopted tests more closely aligned with college- and career-ready standards. And, from 2015 to 2017, states maintained that progress, even after the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act gave states more flexibility around some federal testing rules.
o Unfortunately, they found no relationship between rising proficiency standards and the rising achievement levels – i.e. raising the bar for proficiency has not yet translated into stronger achievement among students. Yet.
For those of us who helped launch, nurture, and sustain the consortia (including several members of CenterPoint’s team), these findings are encouraging. While fewer states are now using the consortia tests than was expected when they were launched in 2010, there is growing evidence that PARCC and Smarter Balanced significantly advanced the field. Now, we must all support educators, parents, and communities as they continue the important work of helping students meet these higher standards.
Lesley Muldoon is the Chief of Policy and Advocacy at CenterPoint Education Solutions