News Brief
Vermont Students Prepare for Post NECAPS World
WCAX-TV 3 (Burlington, VT) (02/22/13) McGilvery, KeithVermont Education Secretary Armando Vilaseca says Vermont will begin using the Smarter Balance computer-based assessment by the spring of 2015, abandoning the standardized, paper-based NECAPS test. The NECAPS test measures math, reading, and writing skills and tests students using the same set of questions. Smarter Balance will test listening and speaking skills as well as math, reading, and writing, and it will change the questions based on individual skill levels. "Each of us is going to have different questions depending on our previous answer, so if I get a question wrong, my next question is a little easier, I get the next question right and it gets a little harder," Vilaseca says. "The smarter balance assessment is the next evolution of assessment." Scheduled for use in 30 states, the Smarter Balance program is built on Common Core skills and carries a higher passing standard than NECAPS. He is hopeful that the results will eventually be linked to college admissions, noting, "It can be high stakes enough so that it has meaning to them once they get out of high school so they can take that assessment seriously."
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