And as CMS officials are gearing up to add tests, here's the memo officials recently sent to schools to explain the process.
Key dates and Information for Upcoming District Field Tests and Summative Assessments
CMS will be using district summative assessments as part of an effort to align all courses to the NC Standard Course of Study or CMS objectives in the case of a local course. This will help to calculate student growth and provide data needed to execute Strategic Plan 2014. Additionally, the summative tests support a recent recommendation made during our AdvancED accreditation visit. In order to prepare for these tests, the office of accountability will administer a field test the week of April 4th. After successfully administering the field tests, a pilot administration of the district summative assessments will occur at the end of the 2010-2011 school year.
Items for these assessments have been developed by a professional item vendor and reviewed by CMS staff from the office of accountability and curriculum and instruction. The field tests allow us to test the questions and use the data to make informed decisions about the final version of district summative assessments for the 2011-2012 school year. The tests for the 2010-2011 school year are listed in this document.
Field Test Background: Field tests are part of the normal protocol in developing tests to ensure that the test questions will measure what they are supposed to measure. No feedback from the field tests will be available to teachers or schools since the purpose is to ensure the quality of test field questions not to measure individual student knowledge. The field testing will allow us to administer a pilot summative test this spring to give feedback to teachers and schools on the performance of their class. This feedback from the pilot tests is important to empower schools to adjust their instruction for the 2011-12 school year in light of these new standards.
K-2:
· Subjects tested: Reading/Math/Science/Social Studies
o Performance related tasks only
o Healthful living and visual and performing arts summative testing will be added in the 2011-2012 school year
o Field test window – April 4–8, 2011
o Summative test window – May 9-27, 2011
o Do not count as part of a student’s grade this year
o Results from pilot tests are only to be used for planning purposes
Elementary (3-5)/Middle:
· Science/Social Studies
o Science administered to students in grades 3, 4, 6, and 7. Social studies administered to all students in grades 3-8.
o 40 Multiple Choice
o Field test window – April 6, 2011
o Summative test window – May 9-20, 2011
o Do not count as part of a student’s grade this year
o Results from pilot tests are only to be used for planning purposes
High School:
· Some subjects will have district summative assessments beginning in the 2011-2012 school year
· Subjects tested in spring of 2011: World History, African-American studies, Contemporary Law and Justice, Contemporary Issues in North Carolina, Sociology, Psychology, Greenhouse Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Earth Science, Forensic Science, Honors Physics, Honors Chemistry, Foundations of English I, Literacy I, English Composition, English 3, English 4, Journalism 1-4, Film as Literature, Student Media Assistant, Foundations of Algebra, Algebra IA, Foundations of Geometry, Intro to Math, Advanced Functions and Modeling, Discrete Mathematics
o In most cases 40 Multiple Choice Questions
o Field test administration window
§ April 6, 2011
o Summative test window
§ June 1-10, 2011
o Any student enrolled in the above courses will take a pilot test in June 2011
o Do not count as 25 percent of a student’s final grade this year
o Results from pilot tests are only to be used for planning purposes
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7 comments:
So how many kids are going to take these tests seriously since they do not count toward part of their grade? Additionally, now that EOG's and EOC's are not required to be passed to go onto the next grade, how many students are going to take these seriously?
Wonderful. More tests. When, CMS, are you going to encourage "critical thinking" instead of robotic responses to your myriad of tests? I suppose never, since none of you thinks critically either.
Manning thinks he is some god wasting billions while ignoring the top achievers. China is ROFLAO off at pc America waste of trillions on its flunkies stealing millions of jobs and loaning trillions with interest.
Where is Obama who wants to allow the rest of the 3rd world to play catchup too? He sends taxpayers a 235 billion a month debt that is more than the total annual debt 10 years ago. He dictates meaningless world revolutions and now gas is 4-5 a gallon and he says nothing. Empty suit and worthless.
Any wonder why liberal socialist engineered marxism failed? Marginal students dont need to waste funds testing.
At first I was willing to listen to Judge Manning to see if he could come up with a way to answer the lawsuit. However, he fell into the age old playbook of the liberals just like Kansas City failed. The nail in the coofin for me about him is that he has stayed quiet on the use of TFA's bumping true educators. He is too much of the old school thinnking that got us into the pickle.
Thanks judge for nothing!
Believe it or not Democrat Bill Clinton who was a social liberal but a fiscal conservative had a 4-500 billion surplus every year of his last term. What are Democrats doing so wrong now other than tripling Bushs annual debt?
kids are the last consideration here; these tests are Gorman's means for measuring how much less to pay teachers on his newly concocted pay scale.
THANK YOU, parents and general public for speaking out. There needs to be an uprising for this to stop. To do nothing is to approve of it.
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