Smarter Balanced Placement Policy Implementation Issues:
Notes from Washington Community & Technical College System Work Group Meeting
January 2015
[Prepared for the Articulation and Transfer Council]
Score Reporting Process
The work group raised a number of questions related to the nature, timing, and process for receiving
the Smarter Balanced scores and using them in the placement process, including questions around
data-sharing agreements, consent/privacy, and the kind of information available in the score reports.
We are working with key staff from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction to answer these
questions as they define with their assessment vendor (American Institutes for Research, AIR) the
general Smarter Balanced score reporting processes for Washington.
System Processes
1. Reciprocity issues if colleges offer better deals than statewide agreement? Should the system
reciprocity agreement extend to placement decisions based on Smarter Balanced scores?
2. Does the agreement impact eligibility for other courses besides English and math that have
placement test prerequisites…?
3. How will the agreement affect students in CTE pathways? (and how many of those come straight to
us from high school)?
4. What start-up funding is available to build processes needed to make agreement work?
College Processes
1. Enrollment management issues (especially in math) and the challenges of enforcing requirement to
take math in 1st quarter—extend expiration date for math to match English?
2. On a campus level who decides about whether to modify the agreement to offer a better placement
deal for students (e.g., extending the expiration date, opening additional courses to students
scoring at level 3 in math, …)?
3. Responding to requests from students to challenge requirements/deadlines—who handles the
challenges? Is there a college policy?
4. How will we be able to compare completion rates using the current placement and completion
rates using the new policy?
5. Will the Smarter Balanced scores have to be manually entered, or can the scores be automated and
included in ctcLink? How much will the workload increase for registration?
6. College staffing issues—testing, advising, …?
7. Tracking students at college, monitoring expiration date, transition to new systems, being
consistent
8. Revenue issues re testing? (transcripting fee as substitute?)
9. Manual purge of data based on expiration dates (and effects on capacity for longitudinal datagathering)?
Agreement Language
The work group raised several questions about the agreement that amount to technical clarifications
of the agreement language; the agreement policy work group will convene to address these issues. The
group also identified a number of questions specific to the definitions related to math in the
agreement; a math-specific advisory group will be convened to recommend clarifying language:
1. Qualifying senior-year math course for level 2 level students? (only transition course, or are
other post-Algebra II courses OK, and if so which ones)?
2. What is a “terminal” math course, i.e., which specific math courses are included in agreement?
3. What’s considered a “calculus pathway” course in high school (for level 3 students to place into
precalculus)? And does what they need to take vary based on what they took as juniors?
Communication
The work group emphasized that we need to have significant marketing campaigns both to high school
audiences (especially students, parents and teachers) and to college stakeholder groups, especially
making sure that all faculty and/or advisors are familiar with the Smarter Balanced assessment and
understand the terms of the placement agreement.
Background
As part of the Washington implementation of the new Common Core State Standards for college- and
career-readiness, the Washington community and technical college system and the Washington public
baccalaureate institutions have endorsed similar but separate agreements for the use of scores on the
11th grade Smarter Balanced assessment as part of the student placement process. The agreements
offer high school students the opportunity to use these scores to establish their readiness for collegelevel coursework when entering higher education institutions in Washington.
The agreements apply only to college readiness and placement considerations for high school students
with Smarter Balanced 11th grade assessment scores admitted to and enrolling in the academic year
immediately following high school graduation or students enrolling in dual-credit courses as high
school seniors. The agreements will be in effect for the graduating classes of 2016 through 2018, then
reconsidered formally in winter 2018 based on student performance data.
The full agreement language can be found at http://www.wsac.wa.gov/college-readiness.
Implementing the Agreement
A community and technical college work group consisting of representatives from key system
stakeholder groups convened in fall 2014 to review the agreement to ask clarifying questions regarding
the specific terms, consider implementation issues, and raise potential logistical challenges. By May
2015, the goal is to identify, prioritize, and address as much as possible key concerns that need to be
addressed for a successful implementation of the Smarter Balanced agreement policy.
Work group representatives have been asked to consult with their respective system groups during the
winter quarter to gather additional input and propose possible solutions to major logistical challenges
related to their area of work.
For more information about the agreement or the implementation process please contact Bill Moore
(360-704-4346, bmoore@sbctc.edu).