JACKSON — The future assessment of students and teachers in the Jackson School District will be changing in a significant way, as recent developments at the state and federal levels that will shape the future of education were discussed at the Board of Education’s annual “State of the Schools” presentation.
“This presentation really is a watershed moment for the Jackson School District, in terms of the changes that are occurring right now in the national landscape,” Deputy Superintendent LuAnne Meinders said.
The majority of the changes come from the state’s adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), a “state-led effort … to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce.” New Jersey is one of 44 states that have joined the CCSS at this time.
Adoption of the CCSS in June 2010, as well as the state joining the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) in spring 2010, were the result of a general perception that schools throughout the country were “in a state of crisis,” Meinders told those in attendance.
As a result, a slew of “next generation assessments” will begin their field testing phase as soon as the 2012-13 school year, with full integration of the new testing process happening in 2013-14.
Meinders announced that the Christa McAuliffe Middle School will take part in field testing the new assessments for engineering and technology. Overseen by federal monitors, the 90-minute test will be administered completely online. Results from the test will be provided to PARCC, with scores eventually compared with schools outside of the local level.
“At that time, you will see in newspapers not just how the Jackson School District is doing in comparison to other schools in Ocean County, but you are also going to see all of our schools ranked against schools across states,” Meinders said.
The current High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA) will be “defunct in two years,” according to Meinders, who said the new testing will require students to exhibit more critical thinking and reading skills.
Testing at the end of the year will also see a major overhaul, as testing for grades three through 11 will be almost completely online. The tests will require computer literacy skills, although for grades three through five the tests will be delivered online, but answers could potentially be recorded on paper.
“Students will have a pre-defined set of Internet resources and they will need to cull through all of that information in order to answer those questions online,” Meinders said. “It’s not just about the answer, but also all of the skill you need to get to the answer that [students] will be graded upon.”
A speaking and listening component from a live classroom portion will also be part of the evaluation.
For teachers, their effectiveness in the classroom will also be evaluated more stringently, since evaluations will happen five times a year. The four regular evaluations, along with a comprehensive end-of-the-year evaluation will be equally based on student achievement and how the teacher performs in the classroom.
“[The teacher evaluations] use the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium as the basis for evaluation, which focuses on a teacher’s ability to adapt classes to the test scores they are seeing, their use of technology in the class, and how they [instruct] their classes,” Meinders said.
Between 70 and 90 percent of the student achievement section of the teacher evaluation will be based on how students perform in standardized testing, with the rest being based on how the rest of the school does in those tests.
Classroom observation and other measures will be looked at as well, eventually leading to a teacher rating of highly effective, effective, partially effective or ineffective.
Other initiatives discussed included an increased technology presence in Jackson classes, with an iPad pilot program debuting at the Crawford-Rodriguez Elementary School and Nook e-book readers in grades nine through 12.
“It’s amazing how many students have to ‘power down’when they come into an instructional setting. They are used to having a myriad of devices that they work with at home, so when they come into a classroom where they don’t have those same tools to work with, then we are not preparing them as much as we need to for that career or college experience.”
Meinders reminded the audience that although the state will be moving toward a growth model form of data collection for teacher, administrator and school evaluations, Jackson schools have used that system for a while.
“We have always been very cutting-edge in the Jackson School District in terms of how we present data. We have always used growth model depiction in order to see how our students are doing,” she said.
Growth model data collection shows results in a year-by-year basis for the same class. The method will roll out statewide by 2012.
“There was a study done by the U.S. Department of Education that came to the conclusion it is not really how children perform on tests, class rank or grade point averages that are the indicators of how they will do in college,” Meinders said. “Instead, it’s the rigor of the high school curriculum.”
Current growth model data charts are available on the Jackson School District’s website, as well as the entire “State of the Schools” presentation.
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