Washington Smarter Balanced High School Assessment
A Chronology for Implementation
Date/s
April 6-June 15,
20151
April-May 2015
By Summer
2015
By July 2015
Mid-Summer
2015
Fall 2015
By October 2015
What’s Happening
Spring 2015 “window” for high
school Smarter Balanced
assessment administration
Review and propose clarifications
to agreement language
Update community and technical
college implementation questions
and approaches
Schools receive student score
reports
Students and parents receive score
reports
HS seniors interested in enrolling in
Running Start courses for first time
can use spring 2015 Smarter
Balanced scores for placement
Make decisions about
administration issues with Running
Start juniors for Spring 2016
By December
2015
Make decisions about score
reporting process and structure for
HS graduates entering college in
Fall 2016
Fall 2016
First graduating cohort of high
school seniors will enter colleges
eligible to use Smarter Balanced
assessment for college-level
placement
Review available longitudinal data
on student course-taking and
academic performance
Make recommendations about any
necessary adjustments in placement
agreement
Fall 2018
Winter 2019
Comments
Local high schools or districts may opt for
narrower window within this state-defined
time frame
Higher education policy work group will
propose recommendations for system
consideration
System implementation work group reviews
latest information on process and considers
what needs to be addressed locally
Theoretically within 2-3 weeks of
assessment being completed
Could be delayed until fall in some districts
Students will need to provide score report to
college to qualify
Work group will make recommendations;
timing will allow any interested colleges
adequate time to follow WWCC model and
offer assessment on-campus
Default option will be “hand-carry” process
for students; goal is to make score release
authorization and access more automated
and easier for both students and college
staff; will need to review with cross-sector
data reporting work group—include RPC,
registrars, ctcLink, …
Using the score for placement is a student
option; students may choose an alternative
college process if they want a course other
than offered by the placement agreement
Full data of 2 cohorts, partial data on 3rd
Needed in time to notify K-12 students of
any changes prior to assessment
administration in Spring 2019
Questions/Comments? Contact Bill Moore, bmoore@sbctc.edu, 360-704-4346
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Shaded rows address Smarter Balanced administration-related timetable, other rows higher
education implementation efforts
Smarter Balanced Placement Policy Implementation Issues in Washington:
April 2015 Update
Score Reporting Process
Working Draft Proposal: SBCTC will work with OSPI to develop a statewide process for datasharing and student consent; students will provide consent and authorize access to their test score
data when they register or request placement at a higher education institution. College staff will need
to input the data into college data system until automated process can be developed through
ctcLink. For the initial implementation colleges will be able to access Smarter Balanced scores (level,
scale scores, claims scores) and high school math/English course-taking as needed for placement
purposes.
Proposed Process: Specific individual staff at each college will be identified and approved through
SBCTC and designated as formal contacts with access to a stripped-down version (limited to the test
score information needed for placement and advising purposes) of OSPI’s Student Record
Exchange application of its Electronic Data System; SBCTC will manage roles and users
Platform: a point of contact user interface for accessing individual student records for purposes of
placement
Timing: effective for fall 2016
Next steps:
1) Key OSPI staff will consider feasibility of proposal from both a technical and a student privacy
perspective
2) Agency researchers (OSPI, SBCTC, ERDC) will collaborate to get some clarity and consistency on
senior-year course definitions from high schools
Longer-term: Develop standard export file format and explore integration into the new community
and technical college data system ctcLink
Comments: Process on hold until OSPI can get through the assessment administration season; will regroup in summer or early fall 2015
Communication
High school:
1) The ReadyWA Coalition has developed promotional materials, including infographics,
related videos, press releases, print materials, etc., designed to help students, counselors,
parents, and the general public understand more about the purpose and value of the
Common Core and Smarter Balanced assessments. In addition to being distributed widely
across the state, resources are available for download at http://www.readywa.org/ or
http://www.wsac.wa.gov/college-readiness
2) In collaboration with SBCTC and WSAC, OSPI distributed letters from state superintendent
Randy Dorn to all school superintendents, high school principals, and high school juniors in
Bill Moore, Director, K-12 Partnerships
360-704-4346 bmoore@sbctc.edu
2
the state about the Smarter Balanced assessment, including information about the higher
education placement agreements. Students were instructed to provide copies of their score
report to after being admitted in order to qualify for the placement agreement.
3) In conjunction with OSPI and WSAC draft material has been developed that would be
included with the score report to parents and students and would address the use of the
scores in the higher education placement policy agreements. This material should be
finalized in summer 2015.
College:
1) Continue to provide quarterly updates to key system stakeholder groups through system
councils and groups and SBCTC staff liaisons to keep people informed about timetable and
new information about the process or the agreement
2) Consult with original policy work group to address recommended clarifications for
agreement language
3) Convene original system implementation work group when OSPI provides firm proposal for
score reporting process
Other Issues: Administering the Smarter Balanced Assessment to Running Start Juniors
If a Running Start student has passed a college-level course that requires college-level skills, why wouldn’t
that student automatically receive the equivalent of a 4 (college readiness) on the Smarter Balanced
assessment?
A key purpose of the Smarter Balanced assessment system is to replace the federal accountability
testing system for K-12 schools (required for grades 3-8 and high school), so that’s the reason why
high school students are required to take the test. Beyond that, the assessments are intended to
provide clear and detailed feedback to students and schools about progress toward achieving the
Washington K-12 Learning Standards in English Language Arts and math as defined by the
Common Core. Given that college courses—and by extension, grades in those courses—aren’t
designed to reflect the Common Core State Standards, there’s no guarantee that because
a Running Start student passes a college course he or she has achieved those standards. If Running
Start juniors are truly “college-ready” in terms of the Common Core standards, they should have no
problem scoring well on the Smarter Balanced assessments.
College Processes
A community and technical college system implementation work group met in December 2014 for
an initial consideration of issues related to the system Smarter Balanced placement policy agreement.
The work group raised a number of questions regarding the interpretation of the language in the
agreement, which the policy work group is addressing, along with a number of issues focused on the
specific implications for college processes and staff, including the following:
1. Will the Smarter Balanced scores have to be manually entered, or can the scores be automated and
included in ctcLink?
2. Will there be college staffing and workload issues—registration, testing, advising,…?
Bill Moore, Director, K-12 Partnerships
360-704-4346 bmoore@sbctc.edu
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3. Will there be enrollment management issues (especially in math if the requirement for fall quarter
enrollment to get the placement deal is enforced)?
4. How will we track these students at college entry, monitor the expiration date for the placement
agreement, maintaining consistency as we transition to a new system…?
5. Will there be a loss of testing revenue, and if so, are there ways to offset that loss? (e.g., a
transcripting fee as a substitute)
6. Will there to be a manual purge of data based on expiration dates (and what are the effects on the
capacity for longitudinal data-gathering)?
7. How do we respond to requests from students to challenge requirements/deadlines? Who handles
the challenges? Is there a college policy?
8. How will we be able to compare completion rates using the current placement and completion rates
using the new policy?
The goal is to reconvene this implementation work group (either in-person or electronically) no later
than Fall 2015 to update them on where things stand with OSPI in terms of Smarter Balanced and
review which of these implementation issues we should address collectively as a system and which
ones really need to be addressed by colleges locally. Columbia Basin College, for instance, has
already begun convening 2 internal work groups:
1) College Processes Task Force, concentrating on logistics and addressing policies and procedures for
issues dealing with registration, the assessment center, loading scores, connections to high schools
and students, etc.
2) Academic Issues Task Force, analyzing the impact on the Math and English departments,
determining what data we want to track, looking at the score expiration, implementing multiple
measures, transcripts, etc.
Both task forces will be led by the Associate Dean for Library and Instructional Support who has
the Assessment Center in her division. For more information contact Melissa McBurney,
mmcburney@columbiabasin.edu
Bill Moore, Director, K-12 Partnerships
360-704-4346 bmoore@sbctc.edu
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