Credit: Alison Yin for EdSource Today

Credit: Alison Yin for EdSource Today

Sarah Tully
August xi, 2015

As educators eagerly wait the results of the new standardized assessments aligned with the Common Core standards that more than 3 million students took in the jump, land officials at present say they program to release the scores in early September, later than originally projected.

Parents can await to get-go receiving their children's scores about the same time.

As early on every bit last month at the State Board of Didactics's most contempo meeting, California Department of Education officials predictable that results of the Smarter Balanced Assessments would be released to the public sometime in August.

Officials say that because this is the first time results on the new assessments will be released, they want to accept extra intendance to make sure everything is accurate and complete before the official release in September. A date has all the same to be appear.

"Nosotros are taking an abundance of caution to ensure that the substantial amount of data we are receiving is properly collected and placed in new files on a new site," said department spokeswoman Pam Slater. "Additionally, the department will be launching a new website to display the results and needs sufficient time to test the new site."

The Educational Testing Service, which administered the new assessments on behalf of the country, plans to start sending parent reports to districts in mid-August, Slater said. Districts then have 20 days to postal service the reports to parents.

In California, the Smarter Balanced assessments are role of  the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, or CAASPP program, replacing the old STAR program with its multiple-choice paper-and-pencil tests that students took each spring. The STAR results were usually unveiled in August.

One selling point of the new assessments, which are administered online, was that they could exist scored more quickly than the old tests and would be bachelor sooner to both parents and teachers.

"The tests are taken online, and results are bachelor to teachers, schools and school districts much more quickly than results from previous tests," the CDE website promised.

Another argument in favor of the Smarter Balanced assessments was that they could provide more than information most a pupil'southward academic abilities than the old California Standards Tests, and could be used to inform actual classroom educational activity.

As the California Department of Education website explained, "the tests provide timely and actionable student information and then that teachers and schools tin adjust and improve didactics to ensure students have the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in school and beyond." But this year, at least, many schools  opened their doors before they receive final test scores, so that teachers will likely accept to postpone making employ of test results at least for the first few weeks of the academic year.

Next twelvemonth, nonetheless, schoolhouse districts are probable to get individual student results much more apace – iii to six weeks afterward completing the math and English linguistic communication arts assessments, officials say.

Although official scores aren't out yet, districts are not entirely in the dark nigh how their students have done. Nearly already have received preliminary results. Since May, the California Department of Pedagogy has been uploading private student results roughly four weeks after they finished taking the tests, as scoring of the students' responses are completed.

Those scores are considered preliminary because districts oasis't necessarily received scores for all of their students and for technical and other reasons. The department has advised districts that "preliminary results should not exist shared with the public."

School districts vary on how they are dealing with the preliminary results that they have already received from the state. Among six school districts that EdSource Today is tracking as they implement the Common Core, some have allowed only principals to run across the preliminary results.  Testing coordinators at other districts have said they will wait to distribute scores to principals and teachers afterwards all of the scores are in.

In Visalia Unified principals and teachers will get-go discussing their schools' preliminary scores this week to make plans for the school year, which starts Th, said Phil Blackness, the district'south assessment coordinator.

As of Mon, Visalia Unified had received between 96 and 99 percent of its scores, depending on the course level and discipline.  "The thing that'due south an advantage this fourth dimension around is, we have a good set of scores before schoolhouse starts," Black said.

But Santa Ana and Fresno Unified officials say they won't share results with individual schools until they receive a consummate ready from the state.

Michele Cunha, Santa Ana's coordinator of student achievement, enquiry and evaluation, said she is printing out schools' scores for commune administrators, but they will non share the information with schools until the official results are out. Santa Ana, where schools open on Sept. ane,  has between 96 and 100 pct of preliminary scores, depending on the class and subject.

"We're at the whim of (the California Department of Instruction) when they officially release them," Cunha said.

Garden Grove Unified, where schools open Sept. 8,  too plans to wait to give the scores to teachers, said John Marsh, the district'south testing ambassador. Now, without land or county scores, information technology'southward hard to explain what the scores mean considering they have cipher to compare them to.

"I call up the biggest challenge is there is not any context to look at the score reports," Marsh said.

San Jose Unified School District officials accept only shared the preliminary results amidst the key staff. School started this week.

"While we eagerly expect the results, nosotros empathise and appreciate the (California Department of Educational activity's) commitment to delivering a comprehensive and complete information set," said Jorge Quintana, a district spokesman.

Catherine Foster, a spokeswoman for the Aspire Public Schools, with 35 California campuses, said while school officials are grateful for the preliminary results, they were expecting to get their own results earlier. So far, Aspire has well-nigh 98 percent of its results. School resumed this week.

"(The) delays fabricated it impossible for teachers to use this data to become a sense of their current students' strengths and challenges on (Smarter Balanced Assessments) before school started or reflect on their performance from the prior year," Foster said in an electronic mail.

Staff writer John Fensterwald contributed to this report.

Sarah Tully covers the Common Core and early education. Email her or Follow her on Twitter. Sign up here for a no-cost online subscription to EdSource Today for reports from the largest pedagogy reporting team in California.

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