Standardized tests soon will look the same in Tennessee as they do in Arizona, and educators will be able to compare the skills and college readiness of students across the nation.
For years, states have measured student success by the states’ separate tests — some of which were considered to be much easier than others — so there was no way to compare students’ results from state to state.
But with $170 million in new Race to the Top funds just announced, 26 states, including Tennessee, will join to create a set of common tests for grades third through 11th that match up with the common core standards they already have adopted. The group is called the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.
“We can finally define ‘proficient’ and it’s the same for everyone,” said Jamie Parris, director of math and science for Hamilton County Schools.
Another group of 31 states also received a federal grant of $160 million to develop a comparable set of tests.
Mike Cohen, president of Achieve, an educational nonprofit that will join Tennessee’s consortium in designing its tests, said it is hoped the two sets of assessments will encourage test-making innovation while still keeping results comparable.
“Much like some kids take the SAT for college admissions and some take the ACT, but every college in the country knows how to equate the scores,” he said.
By 2014, Tennessee, one of the 11 states responsible for designing the tests, will administer the new assessments, doing away with the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program.
Rather than giving one high-stakes test at the end of the year like TCAP, administrators will give the new tests throughout the year as students are learning.
“I think we’ve seen in this state that students have had to work all year long and gear up for one point in time; it’s put a lot of pressure on students,” said Dan Long, executive director of assessment for the Tennessee Department of Education.
Parris also said the periodic testing will allow teachers to analyze test data and, if necessary, use it to change the way they’re teaching.
“The common assessments by themselves aren’t enough; it’s analyzing the data and making instructional changes based on that data,” he said. “This way ... it’s not too late to make changes because your students have left you.”
Instead of using a No. 2 pencil, students will take the new tests on a computer, Cohen said, which will shorten the turnaround time for results.
The 2014 change to the common core standards and a nationwide set of tests actually will mark the second time in recent years that Tennessee has racheted up its academics. Last fall, the state unveiled a more rigorous curriculum and tougher standardized tests.
But that move — the Tennessee Diploma Project — was modeled after the American Diploma Project, whose partners also were instrumental in developing the common core standards, said Amanda Anderson, spokeswoman for the state department of education.
“Our Tennessee diploma standards were very much in line with common core, so our standards are already so far along, the alignment process will be much shorter,” she said.
The next step will come in December, when the state department of education presents to the Tennessee Board of Education how Tennessee’s standards align already with the common core.
Follow Kelli Gauthier on Twitter at twitter.com/gauthierkelli.
Kelli Gauthier covers K-12 education in Hamilton County for the Times Free Press. She started at the paper as an intern in 2006, crisscrossing the region writing feature stories from Pikeville, Tenn., to Lafayette, Ga. She also covered crime and courts before taking over the education beat in 2007. A native of Frederick, Md., Kelli came south to attend Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in print journalism. Before newspapers, ...
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