Teachers in Maine spent part of last year and much of this year preparing themselves and their students for a new standardized test that looks little like the ones to which they had become accustomed. Much of the preparation involved the basics — getting students used to the test’s new format and its computer-delivered nature.
So, what will Maine teachers and students spend next year doing when it comes to state-required standardized tests? Likely more of the same, as teachers and students will have to change course and adjust for the second year in a row.
The Legislature’s Education Committee on Monday voted unanimously to trash the new standardized test Maine students just started taking this year, the Smarter Balanced assessment. The testing window hasn’t even closed on the first year, the results haven’t been released, and Maine policymakers are apparently ready to abandon a new test that they have only had the opportunity to analyze by anecdote.
Maine is one of 17 states whose students in grades 3-8 and 11 this spring are taking the Smarter Balanced assessment for math and English. Unlike standardized tests of the past, Smarter Balanced is computer-delivered and computer-adaptive, meaning the test can be different for each student and pinpoint each student’s ability level more quickly: If a student answers a question wrong, he next faces an easier question; if he gets it right, the next question might be more difficult.
The assessment is less reliant on the fill-in-the-bubble format, and it is designed to test problem-solving skills and higher-order thinking rather than rote memorization. It’s supposed to be a higher-quality, more challenging test that offers schools and teachers more constructive feedback to help them improve.
But the first year has been rocky in a number of classrooms. At the public hearing for the committee-approved bill to dump Smarter Balanced, LD 1276, teachers, administrators and students told lawmakers of some of the problems they’ve encountered: technical glitches that kept student work from being saved or shut students out of testing, poorly worded and loquacious questions, text passages with significant typos, and a time commitment that was simply too onerous.
These concerns about Smarter Balanced can’t be dismissed, though some are to be expected for the first year of a newly developed, first-of-its-kind standardized test. The best way to address them is for Maine, as a governing member of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, to take those concerns to the test developers and demand better. It’s not unheard of for a huge technical undertaking to have problems in its first year only to be corrected in time for the second (healthcare.gov, anyone?).
The urge to withdraw and start fresh with a new standardized test is an understandable impulse. But Maine would be throwing away everything it has already invested in the multi-state testing initiative — including the major time investment Maine’s teachers and students have made to become acquainted with the new test.
In addition, there’s value to Maine in its Smarter Balanced participation, though it might not be immediately obvious. For the first time, the U.S. is on track to have significant numbers of states administer the same standardized test based on the same academic expectations, meaning results can be compared state by state — adding a layer of public accountability and assurance that students across the country are being held to the same standards.
Though these advantages aren’t readily apparent in Smarter Balanced’s first year, the new test also marks a step toward a modern school system. Smarter Balanced’s computer-adaptive nature means students’ scores will be available more promptly — perhaps in time for scores to help teachers judge how well their students are doing with specific skills and adapt instruction accordingly. The test could conceivably be split up into more manageable chunks throughout the year rather than delivered in one time-consuming block. That way, feedback delivered throughout the academic year can offer teachers valuable information on their students’ performance and, perhaps, replace the need to administer other types of tests that take up classroom time.
Maine, however, won’t be able to realize any of that value by giving up on an ambitious educational initiative after one difficult year.
