Delaware Assessment Inventory Initiative and

Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment Updates

Penny Schwinn and Carolyn Lazar
Assessment, Accountability, Performance and Evaluation Branch

April 2015

Topics
Five-Year Assessment Plan and Inventory
(State)
Assessment Inventory (Districts)
Smarter Balanced Update

Overview: Future of Assessment in

Delaware
The Office of Assessment has spent the last 6 months
reviewing current state assessments
Through district and school feedback, observations,
performance routines, etc., DDOE has noted that there is
replication in the comprehensive use of assessments
across the state (including state, district, and school
assessments)
Over the next five years, the goal is to reduce total
testing time and ensure that students are given
meaningful assessments, with information that supports
teaching in the classroom
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Guidelines for Effective Assessment

Systems
Meet Overall Assessment Goals and Ensure
Technical Quality
Align to Standards
Yield Valuable Reports on Student Progress and
Performance
Not Repetitive
Adhere to Best Practices in Administration
An Aligned System of Diagnostic and Interim
Assessments

Why is this Important?

Shared responsibility of reducing testing
State has done this for past two years

Feedback from our communities

Increases instructional time
Focuses assessments on those most
beneficial to instruction
Supports the development of a long range
assessment plan
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State-level Inventory: Five Year Plan

Smarter Balanced
DCAS
End-of-Course
Alternative Assessments
PSAT, SAT, ACCESS, NAEP

District-Level Inventory

DDOE to release a grant opportunity to fund district ability to:

Complete the assessment inventory
Develop an action plan to execute on findings
Develop a communications and community engagement process

Grants became available early April and are due at the end of the month

DOE will complete a template grant application

Award amounts will vary based on district size; specific amounts will be provided
to each district

Awards may be used for:

Full-time staff member or contractor to facilitate process
Teacher stipends

Teach More, Test Less! The Plan.

Phase One:
Review
Current Status

Phase Two:
Develop
Action Plan

Phase Three:
Implement
Action Plan

Phase One: Review Current Status

Establish an assessment strategy
Why do we assess?
What are components of comprehensive
testing system?
Identify and train teams of teachers to review
current assessments
Conduct a comprehensive review of local
assessments
Administer the district/school inventory of current
assessments

Phase Two: Develop Action Plan

Engage with teacher, parents, students and
others to determine recommendations
Recommendation for each assessment
No change, Modification, Replacement,
Elimination
Rationale for decision
Authority
Timing of Recommendation
Action Steps
Develop the final plan

Phase Three: Implement Action Plan

Implement each component of the action plan

Review status periodically to determine success
Review data for instructional time gained
Survey teachers

Technical Assistance
Sample Project Plans
Achieve
Webinar or on-site mentoring
Resources and Technical Support
DOE will provide other resources districts may
consider as part of your budget (accompanying
the grant template)
Will include organizations/individuals to
contract with

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SMARTER BALANCED UPDATE

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Smarter Assessment Status

ELA

Mathematics

Tests Completed

15,132

9,175

Districts/Charters

22

21

District counts as of 4/10/15

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Smarter Assessment Status by District

District
Appo
Brandywine
Caesar
Rodney
Capital
Christina

Colonial
Delmar
Indian River

ELA

Math

2604

1769

3232

846

District

ELA

Math

544

671

578

582

1336

36

57

56

430

976

552
832

567
114

Lake Forest
Laurel

Milford
291

294

804

697

Red Clay
Seaford
Smyrna

2194

1598
Woodbridge

729

728
Charters

908

239

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Smarter Summative Assessment

Most Significant Issues and Resolutions
Issues

Resolutions

DeSSA trained user flag is Issue unresolved. Temporary work-around to

not successfully being
open test session development requirement with
updated in DeSSA TIDE
monitoring. End-to-end user test currently under
way.
Accommodations data
transfer experiencing
issues

Issue unresolved. Students incorrectly

appearing as custom for accommodations in
the test administrator interface. Work-around
requires test administrators to employ additional
efforts to validate accommodations for every
student. AIR currently working on issue.

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Smarter Assessment System

Issues and Resolutions
Issues

Resolutions

Hand-scoring:
new process

Assessment/curriculum collaboration for

training considering assessment and
instructional aspects. Turnkey training
provided.

Hand-scoring:
new technical system

Curriculum/assessment collaboration with

Washington state and AIR. Training
resources posted on portal for Teacher
Hand-Scoring System (THSS).

Hand-scoring:
Conference calls with other states,
Inconsistent display of Smarter staff, AIR. Collaboration and
resources in system
sharing of resources. Sources, prompts,
and materials deployed.

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Smarter Assessment System Feedback

18 districts have received personal contact calls
10 districts/charters average participation in
weekly District Test Coordinator (DTC)
conference/webinar calls
Number of questions range from 34-3, generally
decreasing from week to week

Help Desk issues generally greater than DCAS

at this time last year, but new assessment
AIR Help Desk counts included on handout by
district
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Smarter Assessment System Feedback

Students like the Smarter assessments better
than DCAS
More interesting
Has listening
More realistic

Teachers pleased to have writing included,

frustrated to not have prompts and sources
available for interim hand-scoring
Alignment with standards

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Smarter Assessment System Feedback

Office of Assessment has expanded
communication efforts

Face-to-face District Test Coordinator (DTC) meetings

eNewsletters for DTCs
Weekly webinar/conference calls with DTCs
Weekly assessment team personal contact calls to
DTCs
Presentations with stakeholder groups
Posting of materials, resources on the DOE website

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QUESTIONS

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