September 26, 2017 – EdSource’s Louis Freedberg reports on the soon-to-be released results of the statewide Smarter Balanced tests. He predicts that there will be a rush to analyze, and interpret the results of the tests. He mentions that there may be considerable hand wringing and back slapping depending on what the scores show. Freedberg also predicts that the test results will be used by some to evaluate the success of California’s new education funding law called the Local Control Funding Formula.
Managing Attorney John Affeldt is quoted in the story saying, “There is a risk that people will pay too much attention to the magic numbers, because they are easy to understand and to compare across the system. It is incumbent on policy makers and educators to communicate that California education is about a lot more than the numbers of students who score at a certain level on a test.”
He adds, “The test of the new system is how effectively it motivates schools and districts to improve. We haven’t seen that yet, because we just adopted the new system. We are still designing the assistance and support system, and we have to see how schools respond to the spotlight instead of the hammer.”
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