Objective 2: Implement Balanced Assessments

We believe, even at the earliest ages, students are learning and acquiring new skills. We have developed a robust assessment model for the elementary years that targets skill development and formative learning.

Based on a variety of formative and diagnostic assessments, students are designated as being Above Grade Level, On Grade Level, or Below Grade Level in reading and mathematics. These determinations are made by teachers using a panoply of data available to them and reflect their expertise as elementary educators. 

At the end of the 2014-2015 academic year 77% of kindergartners were reading on grade level and 91% were working on grade level in mathematics. These percentages improved over the elementary grades reaching 82% and 95% on grade level in reading and math, respectively.

Our firm commitment to reaching all children and teaching them the foundational skills in reading and math is evidenced by their performance on the formative assessments given in elementary grades. 

Formative data is an important component of our balanced assessment model as it provides in-time data about what students have mastered and what they are still struggling with.

We believe growth-based assessments provide a unique insight into the value we add to our students’ educations, as well as being an important component of a balanced assessment model.

Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) assessments are used primarily in middle school to measure students’ academic growth from fall to spring. By looking at student growth over time we are better able to understand how well our curriculum and instruction are reaching students across all ranges of student readiness and concept mastery.

Assessing students in the fall allows teachers access to valuable formative information that will drive their instruction and better attune their curriculum to the relative strengths and weaknesses of their students. The follow-up assessment in the spring confirms the efficacy of the teacher’s adjustments, as well as encourages students to take greater ownership of their own learning by giving them a metric of how much they have learned in their academic year.

Based on our trend data, we have improved our ability to use the growth-based data in mathematics and add more educational value for students. Our reading data was similarly trending up, but took a minor dip in the current year. Taken together, the growth-based assessment data indicate that middle school teachers are reaching more of their students at their instructional level and providing them instructionally appropriate and relevant curriculum and instruction.

» Download data for MAP - Reading & Math Mastery

We believe learning isn’t only a collection of facts and skills, rather there is great value in teaching students to problem solve and think critically. Following our Lifelong-Learner Competencies​, we developed performance tasks to measure how prepared students were to be active and learning members of their community.

• 31 performance tasks were delivered to students
• Approximately 15,000 tasks were completed and scored
• Tasks covered language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, physical education, music and art

Our performance tasks were specifically designed to measure students’ performance against one, or more, of our Lifelong-Learner Competencies. In the 2014-2015 academic year nearly every student in the Division completed at least one performance task, with many grades assessing students on multiple tasks. 

While the performance tasks span all subject areas, they are consistent in their focus on students demonstrating their mastery through performance, and often involve students evaluating their own work as a component of the process.

The performance tasks were scored by teachers, individually and in scoring teams, which provided them with a deeper understanding of how well students have learned. The process of scoring also helps teachers alter their curriculum and instruction to better prepare students for real-world problems.

» Download data for Performance Tasks - Lifelong Learning Competencies Mastery

We believe all students should be able to demonstrate their mastery of the state-level curriculum on the standards of learning exams. These benchmark assessments help us evaluate how well we are designing curriculum and delivering instruction to meet students' educational needs.

Over the past four years the standards of learning assessments have undergone substantial revisions to make them more challenging and incorporate technology enhanced items. Initially, these changes precipitated a decline in pass rates across the various subjects. As a result we made adjustments to the curriculum and focused instructional practices to better ensure student preparedness.

In the years since the changes we have seen scores trending upward; back to where they were before the changes. We have also seen the type of work students are doing in classrooms change to better reflect a technology enabled and problem based learning world.

These assessments are intended to measure how well students were taught their grade-level and course-specific content. These assessments do not, however, measure the full breadth of the learning experience we provide, which is why we have designed our balanced assessment model to reflect the myriad ways students learn and demonstrate mastery.

» Download SOL Pass Rate Trends data
» Download data for SOL Scores - 2013 through 2015