Each spring our students in grades 3-10 take the state’s required Standards Based Assessment (SBA) in reading, writing and math. The state is now developing a new set of assessments to measure proficiency on the new state standards that are closely tied to the Common Core State Standards. Because these standards are more rigorous than those on which the SBAs are based, there is trepidation by some in KPBSD that fewer of our students will be proficient on the new tests. While in the short term this will likely be true, it is important to note that our KPBSD staff is not sitting around waiting to react; they are working hard to implement the new standards.
Our first step of this implementation was to revise our language arts and math curricula by basing them on the new standards. Despite some bumps with resources and implementation, our students are now receiving instruction in language arts and math that is in line with the state standards. Our next step is to implement quarterly assessments to measure our students’ learning that will in turn, provide another source of data to guide our teachers’ instruction. With the new curricula and internal quarterly assessments in place, our students will be prepared for the state tests. Unfortunately, there is likely not enough time to get all our students up to speed by spring 2015 when the new tests are first administered. In a perfect world a better way to make this transition to the new standards would have been to roll out them out over the course of six years. It would have been ideal if the first two years were for grades K-3’s adoption, next two years for grades 4-8 and grades 9-12 during the final two years. Unfortunately, the need to be in compliance with federal guidelines prevents such a logical approach. The downside is that our district is once again asked to implement change in a hurried manner. The upside is that we are charging ahead to meet the new challenge and have a strong, dedicated staff to make this happen.
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New Standards
Each spring our students in grades 3-10 take the state’s required Standards Based Assessment (SBA) in reading, writing and math. The state is now developing a new set of assessments to measure proficiency on the new state standards that are closely tied to the Common Core State Standards. Because these standards are more rigorous than those on which the SBAs are based, there is trepidation by some in KPBSD that fewer of our students will be proficient on the new tests. While in the short term this will likely be true, it is important to note that our KPBSD staff is not sitting around waiting to react; they are working hard to implement the new standards.
Our first step of this implementation was to revise our language arts and math curricula by basing them on the new standards. Despite some bumps with resources and implementation, our students are now receiving instruction in language arts and math that is in line with the state standards. Our next step is to implement quarterly assessments to measure our students’ learning that will in turn, provide another source of data to guide our teachers’ instruction. With the new curricula and internal quarterly assessments in place, our students will be prepared for the state tests. Unfortunately, there is likely not enough time to get all our students up to speed by spring 2015 when the new tests are first administered. In a perfect world a better way to make this transition to the new standards would have been to roll out them out over the course of six years. It would have been ideal if the first two years were for grades K-3’s adoption, next two years for grades 4-8 and grades 9-12 during the final two years. Unfortunately, the need to be in compliance with federal guidelines prevents such a logical approach. The downside is that our district is once again asked to implement change in a hurried manner. The upside is that we are charging ahead to meet the new challenge and have a strong, dedicated staff to make this happen.