Report of End of Course Assessments December 11, 2007 The following is a brief report of the End-of-Course Assessments discovered when I attended an End-ofCourse Assessment editing workshop. First the End-of-Course (EOC) bill was passed by the 80th Legislative session of the Texas Legislature and is effective September, 2007. The legislative bill, hereafter referred to as SB 1031, supersedes Governor Rick Perry’s Executive Order 2005. If you are interested in reading a TEA summary of the law, please see http://www.tea.state.tx.us/comm/leg_reports/LegBreBooJul07.pdf or you can get the document by going to the TEA home page and scrolling toward the bottom of the page to The Latest TEA Legislative Briefing Book; clicking on the briefing book; and going to page 90-91 for social studies. The following information comes from Julie Guthrie, TEA Director of Math, Science Assessment, who was in attendance to give us the legislative context for our work with the test bank items. Second, there are to be twelve EOC assessments to include: English I, II, and III; Algebra I, II, Geometry; Biology, Chemistry, Physics; World Geography, World History, and U.S. History. For the World Geography and World History teachers, this change may be positive in that tests will now address what is in the curriculum subject area as opposed to assessment of founding of republic content. The negative is the assessment will be much harder than any TAKS assessment presently given. In addition, expect some changes in your standards, which will be measured, according to the State Board of Education. Further, there will be no senior level assessments except for the obvious test re-takers. Third, during the field test and implementation phase, assessments given will be on-line. For school districts like Irving involved in each phase of the transition to the actual assessment beginning in 2012, we will have access to issues such as level of test difficulty, a genuine sense of assessment questions over content heretofore not assessed. This could be a positive or a negative depending upon teacher instruction back in the classroom. In other words, for U.S. History there will be six objectives instead of five, which is really a splitting out of the current fifth objective. Students will be assessed over content such as secondary and primary sources use from an application point of view. Fourth, how the EOC assessment program will affect specific programs such as PLATO, the assessment division of TEA does not currently know. As in any new legislative program, there are more questions than answers which will be addressed between TEA and the next legislative session. We do know the initial field test may not provide feedback about student performance because the items on the assessment are testing validity of test items over the student population and not for student performance or teacher accountability issues. That will occur by 2012 when the EOC assessment becomes a “high stakes” test. Further, we do know the student class affected by the EOC assessment will be the freshman class of 2009-2010. Further still, graduation will be based upon satisfactory performance on all twelve tests. This means that a student must have an average score of 70 for all three social studies tests to meet the cut score of 210. We were told it would be possible for a student to fail one of the EOC tests and still pass social studies as long as the scores on the other two tests were high enough to pull up the student assessment average to 70 across all three tests. The student must make at least a 60 on any failed test for this average across courses to work. Although we will be able to use AP, SAT, ACT assessments, ALL students will take the EOC U.S. History assessment because of the requirement for the EOC score to be used as 15% of the course grade for U.S. History. Also, students can retake any social studies test whether they have failed the test or not, without currently taking the affected course. We are not sure how this affects changes in the course final grades or how we are to use the alternative tests to score the 15% course grade. Perhaps the state will allow local school districts to make these determinations by local policy. As far as grade averages over the three social studies courses are concerned, local district board policy will dictate. Fifth, as we think about getting our students ready for the field test, they will be using the on-line test which will require they be familiar with some of the on-line tools found on the assessment. It is recommended that we spend some time with the tutorial program which will assist them with use of a ruler; use of Xs for crossing out incorrect answers on the test itself, highlighting text, and the list goes on. You may use the following web site for student practice of tools: http://e-testtx.com Sixth, college readiness issues will have a considerable impact upon the revised social studies standards even into the eighth and tenth grades. College readiness will be an issue when addressing the difficulty level
within each of the social studies assessments. Further, as educators, we have until December 10, 2007 to respond to the general requirements for college readiness that have been proposed as a draft. It was strongly recommended that we respond from the local school districts to the draft from both the curriculum and assessment departments of TEA. Go to the following web site and click on “College Readiness Standards” in the left hand margin of the site: http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/Reports/ We were told our voice would be politically stronger when responding in groups as educators, perhaps from school sites or through an administrator like Sherry Perkins as our Social Studies Coordinator. Please take a moment and review these vague and obtuse “standards” so you have some idea of what Texas higher education is thinking. Know also that this is just the first round, but it is still important for us to put our oar in the water. What is ultimately decided will affect what we do in the classroom. If you would like some insight into the standards, feel free to contact Rosemary Morrow in Curriculum at TEA at the following e-mail address: rosemary.morrow@tea.state.tx.us Lastly, TEA needs people to review and edit proposed test items for the World Geography and World History standards, so if you are interested, go to TEA web site and make yourself heard. You could also go through Sherry Perkins. Attachments: Student Assessment Division, END-OF-COURSE ASSESSMENTS Welcome to the Student Assessment Division
Appendix Summary of SB 1031