Although Gallup's Confidence in Institutions survey for 2012 shows a decrease in respondents placing "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in public K-12 education to 29 percent, down 29 percentage points from 1973, MetaMetrics President and co-founder Malbert Smith III, director of professional development Jason Turner, and research engineer Steve Lattanzio say more should be done to highlight successes in the educational system.
PARCC and Smarter Balanced have both announced that they have sample assessment items and tasks available online, providing educators, parents, and students an initial look at the types of items that will appear on next-generation assessments.
Louisiana State Superintendent of Education John White visited sixth- and seventh-grade math classes at Natchitoches Magnet School, and said that just adding "I can" motivates students, and "good teachers are motivators also. It's a hard thing to do but at the same time it's critical." White said that under Louisiana Believes students will be assessed throughout the year, providing more opportunity for a good test day, and the tests will be better reflections of the year's subject matter and the students' critical thinking ability.
The Conrad Foundation has announced its Spirit of Innovation Challenge, which invites high school students and their coaches to work as a team and develop innovative products and services to help solve global and local problems while supporting global sustainability.
South Carolina students demonstrated improvement on test scores and passage rates this year in most courses, according to data released from the South Carolina Department of Education. The largest improvements were recorded in biology, English, and U.S. history and the Constitution. State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais says, "The credit for student achievement gains belongs to hard working students, parents, and teachers. Measuring student achievement is an important tool to improving instructional practices."
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that cheating was rampant across 44 Atlanta schools before the state stepped in, and unless state oversight is more consistent, even in other states, experts say that the integrity of standardized tests will be called into question. The investigation says that cheating scandals are inevitable if there is poor oversight, and this problem could undermine national education policy built on test scores, which states and local districts hope to use as part of school and teacher evaluations.
California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has urged more schools to take part in the Technology Readiness Tool survey to gauge the readiness of new online assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards. "We know our schools already face enormous day-to-day challenges -- but we also need to understand what issues they face as we move to online testing over the next few years. We know this effort will take time, energy and resources -- all of which are in short supply. That's why we need the broadest participation possible in this survey, so that we provide as much assistance as possible to schools as they make the transition to 21st-century testing," he says.
For the first time this year, Oregon's school districts must set goals in "achievement compacts" as part of Gov. John Kitzhaber's plan to bolster education. Oregon Chief Education Officer Rudy Crew has given 69 of the state's school districts until Oct. 15 to rewrite their goals to boost high school graduation rates and third grade reading and math scores by at least one percentage point this school year.
The Kentucky Department of Education plans to release new accountability data in October, which will simplify accountability by assigning each district and school a score based on five main data sets. Achievement gaps, graduation rates, test scores, growth, and new college-and-career ready standards will be used to generate the scores, which will determine whether a district or school is "distinguished," "proficient," or "needs improvement."
All Virginia students in the 2017-18 school year will be expected to meet a 73 percent passing rate on math tests under a plan aimed at narrowing achievement gaps among students of all backgrounds. Schools would be required to reduce achievement gaps on standards-of-learning exams between different student groups by 50 percent. Students must meet or exceed a minimum pass rate every year.
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