At the beginning of Thursday night’s workshop, a number of the 100 people in attendance said they had heard two or fewer detailed presentations on Common Core curriculum standards. By the end of the evening, however, most of the questions raised by audience were not about the standards, on which schools will base their curriculum. Instead, they focused on the new state testing system scheduled to roll out with Common Core this fall.
The State Board of Education invited board members, school officials and others to attend the workshop held at Delaware State University to address implementation of both Common Core standards and the Smarter Balanced Assessment.
Smarter Balanced will be used by 22 states in a nationwide consortium. The development of the test was funded with a $175 million federal grant which ends at the end of September.
Concerns from parents, teachers, board members and other officials include the cost of implementation and how students are expected to perform in the initial launch of the new test.
Brian Touchette, director of assessment for the Delaware Department of Education, said the state is still negotiating with vendors about the implementation of Smarter Balanced, but that it is expected to be less expensive than the current Delaware Comprehensive Assessment System.
As for the first year’s scores, the consensus seems to be that expectations should not be high.
“Nobody should be surprised when you find out students are not doing as well as we thought they would do,” said Joe Willhoft, executive director of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. He said in the initial testing, it’s common for people to think it is something wrong with the test that causes low scores. That isn’t necessarily the case.
Susan Bunting, superintendent of Indian River School District, said she has been very involved in both Common Core implementation and readying for Smarter Balanced. She said she takes advantage of every opportunity to gather more information.
“I think (people) won’t understand (Smarter Balanced) until we have people who go online and take the test and our children take the test for the first time,” Bunting said.
To make the transition as successful and smooth as possible, Willhoft and other officials sais development of the new assessment has been an open process and will even collect immediate feedback from teachers after the first administration of the test.
A field test of Smarter Balanced is slated for March. Ninety-three schools were selected for the practice run and seven additional schools volunteered to try the test.
Walter Gilefski, a board member for Woodbridge Schools, said he is cautiously confident in Smarter Balanced.
“Rigor is one of the buzzwords,” Gilefski said. “I say to parents, you realize rigor is harder?!
“If making things harder makes them better, good. But let’s just think about it,” he added.
Common Core presentations Thursday night focused on implementation and included a presentation by staffers from the Woodbridge School District. They highlighted how Woodbridge's new curriculum based on the standards was weaving was weaving into professional learning community meetings, how technology is being used to further Common Core goals and how innovative approaches to assess students is being used in their district to change education.