Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment SBAC

This webpage suggests that the tests were at least somewhat adaptive:
http://www.caaspp.org/about/smarter-balanced/

The bottom of this webpage suggests a reason for not using the test to capacity this year:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sa/sbcommonqa.asp

"This year’s results will establish a new baseline for the progress we expect students to make over time."

I'm a school principal and it was said repeatedly by Pearson in several statewide training meetings. Pearson blamed CDE for not making the tests adaptive. This is important because, unlike with NWEA MAP, the scores are not comparative across grade levels nor can you use them to determine a child's level of achievement beyond the current grade level.

What is adaptive about the test? If you get a question wrong, the test will drop down to an easier question. But it will not go below grade level or above grade level by more than a few questions. It definitely does NOT go a full grade level or more beyond the grade level set in the test for the student.

Further, the Performance Tasks are different for each grade level and require a classroom activity in advance. The test scoring is heavily weighted on the Performance Task and this is *not* adaptive and does *not* allow access to any above or below grade materials.

Based on all the meetings I've been in, I believe CA was petrified that if they made the test fully adaptive, they'd have to say "We have X number of 7th graders performing at a 2nd grad level." It's better to not quantify that... I guess....

"Every spring, students in grades three through eight and grade eleven take the Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments for ELA and mathematics. Results from these assessments are just one piece of information to helpteachers, parents/guardians, and
students understand how well a student is meeting the grade-level standards." (emphasis is mine)

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/ca/documents/sbparentgde68.pdf

Thank you for the clarification and detailed information.

It is disappointing that the SBAC scores don't scale to evaluate the extend of a student's knowledge/understanding. I was hoping scalability would be part of the change from STAR testing. For students working below proficiency too it is a disservice to lose this opportunity to understand the magnitude of their challenge. How can our education system provide appropriate remedial action without appropriate evaluation? Perhaps I am missing something?

Is there a way for parents to have a say in this decision to be fully adaptive at least for the 2016 SBAC?

God bless this forum! I just got DS9's scores for the bloody third grade smarter balanced test, and was trying to understand what the "maximum" score meant for math, and I didn't even search Davidson - I was just generally searching the internets - and of course I find another poster HERE with an identical score and identical question - what does the "maximum" mean? Anyway - why do I look for information elsewhere, anyway? You are our peeps.

In the updated (9/2016) FAQ, it states that adaptive testing now may range up to +/- 2 grade levels from the nominal grade, but only for a limited pool of items. Still targets grade-level skills, though.

http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sa/sbcommonqa.asp

Thanks, aeh. We were told it was adaptive, but I'm not surprised the "adaptation" is pretty limited. I was just amused to see DS's score in light of his teacher's sole academic comment about DS, that he "won't even attempt difficult math problems." Well, I don't know about that.