 Student assessment bill advanced
LB 653, sponsored by Lincoln Sen. Ron Raikes, would require the state Department of Education to implement a statewide system for the assessment of student learning and for reporting the performance of school districts and learning communities. Under an Education Committee amendment, adopted 27-4, the department would identify criteria for rating assessment instruments and contract with assessment experts to review and rate locally developed assessment instruments. These would be developed through collaboration among educational service units and approved by a majority of the ESU administrators. The experts would identify model assessment instruments and select up to four instruments for the five subject areas of reading, math, science, social studies and history for each of the three selected grade levels based on such ratings. The assessment and reporting plan would include all public schools and all public school students while providing individual students’ confidentiality. The state board would adopt criteria for the inclusion of students with disabilities, students entering school for the first time and students with limited English proficiency. Currently, student assessment is accomplished using the recently-developed School-based Teacher-led Assessment and Reporting System, or STARS standards. Raikes said LB 653 was based on the results of a legislative performance audit. The result of the study, he said, reflected that the department had not met requirements enacted in 1999 to narrow the number of assessment instruments used to four. The department instead identified six guidelines for developing an assessment and four alternatives for meeting those six guidelines, essentially leaving teachers 24 ways to do testing, he said. The definitions provided in LB 653 would eliminate any confusion about the required assessments to ensure a consistent system, Raikes said. The bill defines an assessment instrument as a test aligned with state and local standards. The 1999 legislation created a statewide writing assessment, Raikes said. The bill would add statewide math and reading tests to be done at three separate grade levels. “They’d be developed in the same way our locally based assessments are, that is, from the bottom up,” he said. Sen. Greg Adams of York said the bill moves away from the four previously required assessment models and reflects the recent work that teachers have done toward developing assessments. “What's been going on for the last seven years has been onerous, difficult, frustrating, but ultimately valuable," he said. “Teachers have been put through the paces on developing good assessment devices." The bill is not meant to ignore or erase the work teachers have done, he said, nor is it intended to create more work for teachers. “To the contrary. It's designed to create a bit of relief," Adams said. “Teachers have just bought themselves more time back in the classroom." LB 653 would allow school districts to continue developing assessments, but also would provide them the option to join with other teachers in their ESU to develop assessments. The bill comes closer to complying with the original assessment law passed in 1999 while giving teachers more time in the classroom, Adams said. Lincoln Sen. Bill Avery, a former university professor, supported the statewide assessment system. He said he was often shocked by the results of pre-testing his students who were fresh out of high school. “Some students didn't know that there was a Russian Revolution or that Poland was a part of Europe,” he said. The state should be very concerned about how well schools are preparing students for college, he said. “Our students have to compete not just in Nebraska, not just in the nation. They have to compete in a global community now," Avery said. Gretna Sen. Gail Kopplin said he is not a proponent of comparative testing. To illustrate his point, he suggested that all 49 senators take a test on the constitution. “Half of us will score below average, and the rest of us will talk about them behind their backs,” he said. “And the bottom five, we'll all snicker and laugh at them. That's what comparison testing does." Adams said the purpose of the assessment is to allow schools to track students’ learning process and is not intended to be a contest. “What we're really measuring is the progress of a kid, not how York is doing compared to Scottsbluff," he said. Provisions of LB 615, also sponsored by Raikes, were amended into the bill and would require the State Board of Education to implement a statewide system for tracking individual student achievement. This would allow schools to track students’ progress throughout their career in the K-12 system, Raikes said. A technical amendment that delays dates throughout the bill by one year was adopted 30-0 and the bill advanced to select file 26-5. |
