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The Oklahoma Department of Education wants to replace students’ state tests with benchmark assessments and allow alternatives to the ACT in high school, such as the SAT and Classical Learning Test.
The agency’s 4-page waiver request to the U.S. Department of Education asks the changes be approved starting this school year.
The new plan represents a monumental shift in school assessments. Currently, schools administer English language arts and math exams to third through eighth graders; fifth and eighth graders are also tested in science. All 11th grade students take the ACT, plus an additional science and U.S. history test.
The waiver, if approved, applies to all of those tests except U.S. history.
To switch to benchmark assessments, districts will be asked to select from a list of approved vendors by Dec. 1, contract with the vendor directly and then submit a reimbursement request to the Oklahoma Department of Education, according to a Q&A on the department’s website. Most districts already use these vendors as interim checks and to screen for dyslexia.
The agency said the shift will save the state money and provide districts more flexibility. But some are concerned the test results won’t be easily compared across districts.
“The devil is in the details,” said Harry Feder, executive director of FairTest, an organization that promotes equitable testing of students in K-12 and higher education.
Oklahoma’s waiver offers an assurance that the state will monitor performance data among student subgroups, such as low-income and students with disabilities, but it doesn’t detail how it will do so, something that concerns Feder.
And it doesn’t explain how the state will measure state standards with benchmark assessments, which they aren’t really designed to do.
The state agency tasked with making sure the tests are comparable, the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability, said doing so with multiple vendors would be extremely complex, KFOR reported.
The public can comment on the proposal through Sept. 8 at this link. Questions, comments, story ideas? Please reach out via email.
— Jennifer Palmer
Recommended Reading
- The future of University of Central Oklahoma’s student newspaper, The Vista, is unclear following a decision to immediately end the print publication. [Oklahoma Voice]
- A Tulsa-based law firm has withdrawn as general counsel to the Oklahoma State Board of Education amid ongoing conflicts between recent gubernatorial appointees to the board and the chairman of the board, State Superintendent Ryan Walters. [Tulsa World]
- An investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found more than 60 instances of nepotism, self-dealing and conflicts of interest among 27 private schools that likely would have violated state laws had the schools been public. [ProPublica/Texas Tribune]
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