Joe Willhoft discussed the forthcoming Common Core field test before the State Board.

Joe Willhoft discussed the forthcoming Mutual Core field exam earlier the State Lath.

The executive director of Smarter Balanced, a consortium of states developing the new Mutual Core assessments, said he supports California's determination to give the field, or practice, test in the new standards to all students side by side spring, rather than limit the airplane pilot to a small test group as other states are doing.

"The field exam is a bang-up opportunity to pressure-test" districts' capacity to handle calculator-based assessments, Joe Willhoft said in comments Midweek before the Country Board of Didactics. "I applaud California for its determination to aggrandize to as many schools as possible."

Willhoft's remarks won't solve the state's conflict over the field test with the U.South. Department of Instruction, which is threatening to withhold an estimated $45 million information technology gives the country Section of Didactics to administrate federal Title I programs and standardized tests. But Willhoft did support the state'south reasoning, and he said he wished more of the 26 Smarter Counterbalanced states had followed California's example.

U.Southward. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has offered to exempt schoolhouse districts and states from giving their land standardized tests for grades 3 through 8 and 11 if they give the Common Core field tests instead. Merely the one-year federal waiver would be given only if states agreed to give field tests in both English language arts and math. California is requiring that districts give i or the other – but not both. Field tests are used to validate test questions and are a "test of the test" and so don't provide results that are useful for parents and valid for judging schools' progress.

Country Section of Educational activity officials have said they don't want to overload school districts that are administering tests by calculator for the offset fourth dimension. Willhoft agreed that there are pregnant benefits from giving the field examination a yr before the official Smarter Counterbalanced tests in jump 2015. Many states have attempted online testing, and "it didn't turn out well," he said, considering they hadn't washed a trial run, testing their computers and Internet capacity, anticipating the need to conform students with special needs, downloading the secure browser and giving students the feel of signing on to the organisation and answering more multi-step, circuitous questions.

Even though a new land law, AB 484, requires all students to accept one of the Common Cadre field tests adjacent leap, no one knows how many schools and districts will be upwards and fix to exercise so. 3 surveys of districts take produced estimates from 45 to 75 percent of districts.

But for those districts struggling to get ready, aid is on the way.

Past ending land standardized tests in most subjects under AB 484, the state is saving $34 1000000 out of $51 million approaching for testing in the electric current school year. On Wednesday, the State Lath voted to direct $22 meg of it to help districts gear up for and resolve their technical problems with administering the field examination. Under a revised contract, ETS, the country's testing contractor, has expanded its "help desk" for districts and agreed to send computer experts out into the field to troubleshoot problems. ETS has agreed to create and distribute preparation materials, do workshops and webcasts to support the installation of the test, help districts administer the test, collect information and so do a follow-upward study on what worked and what didn't.

Doug McRae, a retired standardized testing executive, questioned the amount and the lack of details in the contract, which was not made available to the Land Board and the public until the night before the Lath vote.

John Fensterwald covers state education policy. Contact him and follow him on Twitter @jfenster. Sign upwardly here for a no-cost online subscription to EdSource Today for reports from the largest education reporting squad in California.

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