Tag: Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
McMillin Amendment Halts Common Core in Michigan
The Michigan House passed an education budget bill with an amendment that stops state funding for the implementation of the Common Core and its assessments.
Common Core Study Bill Filed in North Carolina
H733 was filed in the North Carolina House of Representatives. The bill’s purpose is to establish a committee of 20 members to study the Common Core State Standards and their impact in North Carolina. State Representatives Larry Pittman (R-Concord), Hugh Blackwell (R-Valdese), Rob Bryan (R-Charlotte) and Michael Speciale (R-New Bern) are the primary sponsors. If [...]
Contact Iowa House-Senate Conference Committee to Strip SBAC Language from Bill
The Iowa House and Iowa Senate have put together a conference committee to iron out differences in their respective education reform bills. Of specific concern is a provision in the amended HF 215 which grants the Iowa Department of Education authority to mandate a different assessment (from what is already required by state law) to [...]
Data Tracking and the Common Core
One of the things that isn’t being discussed enough, but is getting attention is how data tracking of students is connected to the Common Core. It isn’t just assessment scores. Joy Pullman pointed that out in her article last week on data mining: The department is also funding and mandating databases that could expand each [...]
Common Core Is Where The Money Is At
I was just reminded of that today from an EdWeek story announcing tha Amplify Insight has been awarded $12.5 million dollar contract from Smarter Balanced. One of the two consortia developing tests for the Common Core State Standards has awarded a $12.5 million contract to Amplify Insight to develop a digital library of formative assessment [...]
SBAC Assessments Sneak Through Republican-Led Iowa House
I wrote back in January that there would have to be a statutory change in Iowa before the Iowa Department of Education could implement the assessments from the Smarter Balanced Assessments Consortium. Well that took one step forward last night when it was approved on a voice vote no less in the Iowa House. It [...]
Alabama Pulls Out of PARCC and SBAC
Edweek reported late Friday that Alabama has pulled out of both testing consortia that it was involved in. In an email to EdWeek, the state’s assessment director, Gloria Turner, confirmed that Alabama has bowed out of both the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. [...]
Unwritten Tests Provide Obstacle for Common Core
Joy Pullman writing for the Heartland Institute says that unwritten tests present an obstacle for the Common Core State Standards. Education leaders are beginning to publicly worry that two coalitions attempting to determine mandatory tests for some 40 million U.S. students by 2014 can’t pull their massive enterprise together by deadline or at all. This [...]
Mississippi Will Struggle With Common Core Implementation
I had written earlier that Arizona has funding issues with the Common Core. Iowa’s Department of Education doesn’t even have statutory authority to implement the SBAC tests. Now The Sun Herald in Biloxi, MS reports that schools in Mississippi will have a hard time with implementation: All U.S. students in second through 12th grades, under [...]
SBAC Assessments Will Require Statutory Change In Iowa
Iowa jumped on the Common Core State Standards in 2010. They joined the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. The Iowa Department of Education can’t mandate assessments. Statutorily they are legally allowed to align the Iowa standards with other “accepted” standards. Iowa Code 256.7 subsection 26b says: Continue the inclusive process begun during the initial development of [...]
