Regional Assessment Network Meeting

Regional Assessment Network Meeting

CDE Program Updates

March 2017

CAASPP Institute

In January and February, the CDE-sponsored CAASPP Institute was conducted at six sites throughout the state. The purpose of the Institute was to provide professional development for teams of local educational agencies (LEAs) on how to best use all components of the CAASPP System to improve teaching and learning. The focus of this year’s Institute, which was jointly developed by the CDE and the Sacramento County Office of Education (SCOE), was on “digging deeper.” In March, the training material from the 2016–17 CAASPP Institute will be posted on the CDE Web page at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/ca/.

Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments

Translations of Parent Notice of CAASPP Administration

The 2016–17 notice of CAASPP administration letter, located at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/ca/caasppadminnftyltr.asp, is now available in Spanish as well as Armenian, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Hmong, Korean, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. This is a sample letter to serve as a notice to parents of the year’s statewide assessments:

·  Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments—English language arts/literacy (ELA) and mathematics

·  Pilot California Science Test (CAST)

·  California Alternate Assessments (CAAs)—ELA and mathematics

·  Pilot CAA for Science

Please note that this letter does not satisfy a district’s obligation to notify parents of their right to exempt their child from statewide assessments pursuant to California Education Code Section 60615.

Hand-Scoring Training for the 2016–17 CAASPP—Registration Now Available

Beginning February 28, 2017, Educational Testing Service (ETS) and Measurement Incorporated will offer one-day workshop sessions for California educators interested in becoming hand scorers for the CAASPP Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments. The sessions are scheduled as follows:

·  February 28—Sacramento

·  March 2—Redding

·  March 14—Concord

·  March 16—Fresno

·  March 28—Burbank

·  March 30—Irvine

·  April 18—San Diego

·  April 20—Riverside

Six different content area/grade band sections will be offered during each session, from which participants may select one at the time of registration:

·  ELA, grades three through five

·  ELA, grades six through eight

·  ELA, grade eleven

·  Mathematics, grades three through five

·  Mathematics, grades six through eight

·  Mathematics, grade eleven

After completing the workshop, participants can apply to be hand scorers for the CAASPP Smarter Balanced Summative Assessments.

To register, complete the online registration form, located at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/ca/caasppadminnftyltr.asp. Questions about registration and all other topics regarding CAASPP administration should be directed to the California Technical Assistance Center (CalTAC) by phone at 800-955-2954 or by e-mail at .

2016-17 Post-Test Workshops

In preparation for the conclusion of your local educational agency’s (LEA’s) 2016–17 CAASPP test administration, ETS, in partnership with the CDE, is pleased to announce that registration is now available for the 2016–17 CAASPP Post-Test Workshops: Using Assessment Results to Inform Teaching and Learning. LEA CAASPP coordinators are encouraged to bring one or two additional staff members to the workshop. We recommend that participants include curriculum instruction leaders, professional development leaders, and/or LEA representatives who would disseminate the information to other teachers within your LEA.

The purpose of these in-person workshops is to inform LEAs of the various components of the 2016–17 CAASPP assessment student results and reports and how this information might be used to inform instruction.

Topics that will be covered in the workshops include:

·  Principles of scoring (including high-level information on the scoring of the Smarter Balanced Online Summative Assessments);

·  Using the Online Reporting System (ORS);

·  Understanding how to access, use, and interpret the 2016–17 Student Score Reports and results to improve classroom instruction; and

·  Providing supplementary resources and reference materials to assist LEA CAASPP Coordinators with their local training efforts to improve teaching and learning.

The 2016–17 CAASPP Post-Test Workshops: Using Assessment Results to Inform Teaching and Learning will be held in the following locations:

Northern California:

·  Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Sheraton Grand Sacramento

·  Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Shasta County Office of Education (COE) (Redding)

Central California:

·  Friday, May 12, 2017

Fresno COE

·  Tuesday, June 13, 2017

Santa Clara COE (San Jose)

Southern California:

·  Wednesday, May 31, 2017

University of California, Riverside Extension Center

·  Thursday, June 1, 2017

San Diego COE (National City)

·  Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Los Angeles COE (Downey)

·  Thursday, June 8, 2017

Ventura COE (Camarillo)

Questions about registering for a 2016–17 Post-Test Workshop and all other topics regarding CAASPP administration should be directed to the CalTAC by phone at 800-955-2954 or by e-mail at .

Smarter Balanced Digital Library and Interim Assessments

Digital Library Workshop

In February 2017, Smarter Balanced hosted a State Network of Educators (SNE) member workshop in Houston, Texas to support further development of the Smarter Balanced Digital Library. During the workshop, SNE members focused on developing, submitting, and reviewing proposed resources for inclusion in the Digital Library; members of the State Leadership Team, which is comprised primarily of staff from state education agencies, provided support to SNE members and continued planning for the development of future Digital Library playlists. California educators represented 17 of the approximately 100 workshop participants. This workshop resulted in approximately 45 new resources, of which 12 were contributed by California educators.

Digital Library Resource Collections

New resource lists continue to be added to the CDE Digital Library Collections Web page at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sa/collectionresources.asp. The Instructional Learning Series is designed to connect educators with resources in the Digital Library that relate directly to content assessed by specific Interim Assessment Blocks (IABs). Two new Instructional Learning Series resource lists were added to the collection in January 2017:

·  Grade 7—Read Informational Texts

·  Grade 7—The Number System

The Smarter Balanced Digital Library Connections resource lists are a collection of resource lists that link interim assessments with Digital Library resources based on student performance on IABs. Three Smarter Balanced Connections resource lists were added to the collection in January 2017:

·  Grade 4—Revision

·  Grade 6—Geometry

Brand new enhancements to the Smarter Balanced Digital Library now offer users expanded personalization and collaboration features. The newly added features include:

·  Personalized Favorites Collections—This feature, which can be accessed under the “Favorites” tab by choosing “Create a Collection,” allows users to create personalized lists consisting of their favorite Digital Library resources. Users can share these favorites with fellow users through new or existing forums;

·  Customizable features for feedback goals—This feature allows users to set personal goals for providing feedback on and engaging with materials in the Digital Library. Access this feature using the "Rate" and "Discuss" tabs, then monitor yearly goal progress in the user profile;

·  Downloadable certification of achieved user goals—This feature allows users to download a certificate to mark achieved goals and celebrate their achievement on the Most Active Members section of the Digital Library's landing page;

·  Manageable e-mail notifications—Communication received from the Digital Library is currently related to "Create New Resource" workflow and are triggered upon the successful submission of a resource. A new feature now allows users to manage communication settings to control the frequency of this communication.

Total number of interim assessments completed to date= 2,488,279

o  Interim Assessment Blocks completed = 2,071,836

o  Interim Comprehensive Assessments completed = 416,443

California Alternate Assessments (CAAs)

·  A training sample of the CAA for Science, embedded performance task, is now available on the CAASPP Portal California Alternate Assessments Web page at http://www.caaspp.org/administration/about/caa/index.html.

o  CDE is currently producing an informational video about the new CAA for Science; we will announce the release of the video in the CAASPP Weekly Update.

·  CAAs for ELA, mathematics, and the pilot science will be available for LEAs with testing windows open on or before March 20 and will remain available until the LEAs testing window closes.

o  CAA version assignments have been posted on the CAASPP Portal CAA for ELA and Mathematics Version Assignments for 2016–17 Test Administration Web page at http://www.caaspp.org/administration/about/caa/caa-assignments.2016-17.html.

o  The online Test Examiner Tutorial (video) is now available at http://www.brainshark.com/ets/CAA-tutorial_2017. This tutorial covers the administration of the CAA for ELA and mathematics as well as the CAA for Science. Educators who complete this tutorial and respond to all answers correctly will receive a certificate.

·  For the pilot test, one embedded performance task for each grade (i.e., grades five and eight, and high school) will be posted within Test Operations and Management System (TOMS) on the CAA Secure Materials tab on the help page at http://www.CAASPP.org.

o  CDE and ETS will use responses to the student and test examiner surveys to collect feedback on the CAA pilot test.

§  Student’s survey responses must be entered into the test delivery system by creating a test session with the test administrator interface and logging into student survey using the secure browser.

§  The test examiner survey will be available on the CAASPP portal.

California Science Test (CAST)

·  The CDE requested a formal hearing with the U.S. Department of Education (ED) on December 20, 2016. The hearing was conducted on January 6, 2017. On January18, 2017, the CDE received a letter from the ED, which denied the waiver request. The CDE is currently reviewing options, which may include a formal request for a one-year waiver that was discussed orally at the formal hearing.

·  The CAST training test is now available on the CAASPP Portal Online Practice and Training Tests Web page, at http://www.caaspp.org/practice-and-training/index.html. Training test items include, for grade five, a performance task with eight items; for grade eight, five discreet items; and for high school, a performance task with seven items. Items for grade five and high school represent examples of performance tasks that, once the CAST is operational, would be presented in Segment B. The discrete items for grade eight would be presented in Segment A of the operational CAST.

o  CDE is currently producing an informational video about the new CAST; we will announce the release of the video in the CAASPP Weekly Update.

·  The CAST scoring guide for the training test is now posted on CAASPP Portal Test Administrator and Test Examiner Resources for the Online Practice and Training Tests Web page at http://www.caaspp.org/ta-resources/practice-training.html. The guide provides information on alignment with the California Next Generation Science Standards, correct answers, and sample responses for constructed response items.

·  CAST pilot test will be available for LEAs with testing windows open on or before March 20 and will remain available until the LEAs testing window closes.

o  CDE and ETS will use responses to the student and test administrator surveys to collect feedback on the CAST pilot test.

§  Student’s survey responses will be administered at the end of the test session through the secure browser.

§  The test administrator survey will be available on the CAASPP portal.

English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC)

·  In January 2017, field test materials were mailed to the local educational agencies that are participating in the ELPAC Summative Assessment (SA) field test (FT).

·  From February 2 through March 2, 2017, the Sacramento County Office of Education conducted 15 CDE-sponsored in-person trainings throughout California for the ELPAC SA and Initial Assessment (IA) FTs. Four additional FT trainings are scheduled for August 2017 to address staff changes in test examiners for the IA FT.

·  In February 2017, the CDE began reviewing specifications documents for the upcoming Speaking and Writing Range Finding meetings that are scheduled in April–June 2017 in Sacramento. During the range finding meetings, California educators will gather to identify sample student responses from the ELPAC Speaking and Writing domains that will be used to ensure that all constructed-response items are scored consistently and reliably throughout the state.

·  In early March 2017, the proposed ELPAC regulations went back to the State Board of Education (SBE) in response to questions by Office of Administrative Law staff that needed additional clarification. The SBE also directed that the proposed changes be circulated for a second 15-day public comment period in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act.

·  ELPAC Field Tests Windows

o  SA FT Window: March 6–April 14, 2017

o  IA FT Window: August 28–September 22, 2017

·  Information about the ELPAC can be accessed through the CDE ELPAC Web page at www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/ep/ and the ELPAC Web site at www.elpac.org.

California English Language Development Test (CELDT)

·  On February 13, the registration window for the 2017–18 CELDT Scoring Training of Trainers Workshop opened. Workshop dates and locations are available on the www.celdt.org Web site.

·  The CELDT Data Review Module (DRM) for district data correction of annual assessment (AA) Window records opened on Monday, February 27 and closes on Friday, March 24, 2017. LEAs can prepare for the DRM by reviewing the monthly Student Score Files for missing and inaccurate information (e.g., missing previous CELDT scores, incorrect test purpose, etc.).

·  The 2017–18 Edition Initial Ordering Window opens Monday, March 13, 2017. LEAs can only order materials to administer the IA in 2017–18.

California Spanish Assessment (CSA)

·  In December 2016, the CDE reviewed the pilot test plan and test forms in preparation for the CSA pilot test, which is scheduled for fall 2017.

·  On December 6 and 7, the CDE and ETS met with California educators via WebEx to receive input on the CSA blueprints.

·  On January 24, 2017, the CDE and ETS gathered input from educators on the general achievement level descriptors (ALDs) and the blueprints at the CAASPP Stakeholder in-person meeting. ALDs are descriptors of student performance level expectations that provide the range of measurement for the assessment and, along with test blueprints, help to ensure that the evidence from the test will provide valid information to score users.

·  On January 25 and 26, 2017, ETS conducted Item Writer Training for educators at National University in Costa Mesa. The purpose of the training was to lead California educators through the California Common Core State Standards en Español, and detail how to write items that are appropriate and free of bias and sensitivity issues. Educators also learned about various technology-enabled items that will be used for the new CSA. The trainings allow for the CDE and ETS to develop a group of item writers to produce items throughout the development of the CSA.

·  In March 2017, the CAASPP regulations for statewide assessments, which is inclusive of the CSA regulations, went to the SBE for approval for the Commencement of the Rule Making Process.

·  Information about the CSA can be accessed through the CAASPP Web site at http://www.caaspp.org/.

Printed by the Riverside County Office of Education