Indiana: Using test data to study the pandemic’s effects
By Dale Chu The time for states to make their case for waiving out of testing this spring is likely at an end, but the period for mischief-making is just getting started. In the coming weeks and months, in addition to examining assessment waivers, I’ll be using this space to look at how states have […]
Assessments by the numbers
By Dale Chu With all of the coronavirus related news vis-à-vis testing, I’ve neglected to mention the exciting updates we’ve made to Assessment HQ’s Explore State Data tool. Here are some of the notable ones, which reflect state data released at the end of last year: – 33 states have comparable data from 2016 through 2019. […]
The assessment roller coaster is far from amusing
By Dale Chu Yesterday, Indiana publicly released the results from its new state test and, as predicted, the numbers were sobering. Fewer than half of students passed. Notably, the results continued to show wide disparities across race and demographics: 43.3% of white students passed both the English Language Arts and mathematics exams compared to 24.2% […]
The lessons of assessment politics are often “ILEARNed” the hard way
By Dale Chu Tomorrow, the results from Indiana’s new state test—called “ILEARN”—will be released to the public at the Indiana State Board of Education’s monthly meeting. Wednesday’s release has been preceded by considerable hubbub because the scores are disappointingly low according to parents and school officials who already received their results last month. As a […]
States are closing the honesty gap, but will it last?
By Dale Chu Some honest-to-goodness good news today: The latest National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) study shows that states have raised the cut scores for proficiency on state tests. Both Education Week and U.S. News and World Report have strong write-ups on the study. What this news means is that the honesty gap—the discrepancy […]