1 / 14

Gene Bottoms Senior Vice President Southern Regional Education Board gene.bottoms@sreb.org 404-875-9211

Measuring High School Students’ College and Career Readiness Race to the Top Assessment Public Meeting United States Department of Education Boston, Massachusetts November 13, 2009. Gene Bottoms Senior Vice President Southern Regional Education Board gene.bottoms@sreb.org 404-875-9211.

garren
Download Presentation

Gene Bottoms Senior Vice President Southern Regional Education Board gene.bottoms@sreb.org 404-875-9211

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Measuring High School Students’ College and Career ReadinessRace to the Top AssessmentPublic MeetingUnited States Department of Education Boston, MassachusettsNovember 13, 2009 Gene Bottoms Senior Vice President Southern Regional Education Board gene.bottoms@sreb.org 404-875-9211

  2. Are college and career readiness the same thing? • Readiness for college • Reading, writing and mathematics knowledge and skills to qualify for and succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing college-degree courses without the need for remedial classes – level varies by program and institution • Readiness for careers • Ready to enter and advance in a job or succeed in advanced training for a high-skill, high-wage job • Able to read, comprehend, interpret, analyze and locate complex technical materials; use mathematics to plan, set priorities and solve problems in the workplace and pass a state-approved industry certification or licensure exam in the field USDOE 11-13-09

  3. Should the threshold set for college readiness become the measure for high school graduation? • States planning to continue with high-stakes graduation exams should establish different threshold levels of knowledge and skills in reading, writing and mathematics for high school graduation. • States can establish a continuous improvement system that requires high schools to increase annually the percentage of students meeting college- and/or career-readiness standards, progressing toward target goals while raising graduation rates. USDOE 11-13-09

  4. Measuring Student Readiness for College and Careers • Comprehensive reading assessment with a writing component at end of grades 9 and 11 • Literacy is key to college and career success • Use 9th-grade results to embed literacy standards and strategies into each discipline. • Use the senior year to address student’s high school graduation, college- and career-readiness deficits. • Schools can assess whether changes in what and how students were taught have worked. • Create sub scales for discipline areas including CT, on the 11th-grade exam. • Establish multiple cut scores for graduation, advanced training and college readiness . USDOE 11-13-09

  5. Focus comprehensive reading assessment on: USDOE 11-13-09

  6. Measuring Student Readinessfor College and Career Readiness • End-of-course Algebra I exam given at end of grade 7, 8 or 9, designed to assess the most essential foundational, procedural and reasoning skills and understandings necessary to succeed in Algebra II and other mathematics courses • Comprehensive mathematics exam at end of grade 11, covering a sufficient range and depth of content and skills to establish multiple cut scores for: • college program with strong math requirements • college programs with less demanding math requirements • advanced training (if necessary) • high school graduation USDOE 11-13-09

  7. Why require Algebra I end-of-course exams by the end of grade 9? • Foundational course for being on track for college- and career-readiness • Improve alignment of middle grades math curriculum to Algebra I readiness standards • Improve teaching of Algebra I • Encourage embedding of selected Algebra I standards in science and CT • Encourage best teachers to teach Algebra I • Develop early intervention to address student deficits in middle grades USDOE 11-13-09

  8. Why require a comprehensive mathematics exam at end of grade 11? • Use senior year to address gaps • Reflect varying levels of mathematics needed, based on students’ career and educational goals • Encourage greater instructional connection among mathematics, science and technology teachers through high school • Hook more students into accelerated mathematics curriculum through science and selected CT courses • Algebra II not appropriate for college- and career-readiness exam USDOE 11-13-09

  9. Focus comprehensive mathematics assessment on: USDOE 11-13-09

  10. Design the assessment system to inform school and teacher leaders on actions needed to fix the system. Students’ reports of their experiences are better predictions of their performance than teachers’ reports of what they did. • Collect information from students about: • What they were taught • What was expected of them • How they were supported • How they were taught • How they were engaged – intellectually, emotionally, socially and behaviorally – in learning • How much assistance they received in setting goals and planning a course of study aligned to goals USDOE 11-13-09

  11. Couple designing assessments for college and career readiness with refocusing the state accountability system. • Give equal weight to graduation and achievement in determining school performance. • Set achievement levels that recognize schools with higher percentage of students meeting college- and career-readiness standards. • Broaden the definition of rigor beyond the classic college-preparatory program of study. USDOE 11-13-09

  12. Urge states to broaden the range achievement indicators beyond the new college- and career-readiness assessment to include percentage of high school students who: • Pass state-approved employer certification exams, indicating readiness to enter employment. • Succeed in academically challenging course work – advanced placement, International Baccalaureate programs. • Meet ACT or SAT college-readiness benchmarks. • Earn postsecondary education and training credits early through dual credit/joint enrollment. • Pass reading and mathematics state exams at readiness levels for high school graduation, college studies and career training. USDOE 11-13-09

  13. Develop an assessment strategy that would encouragea broader definition of rigor. • Application-based learning (authentic problems) (Texas Legislation) • Higher-order, problem-solving learning (knowledge in context) • Depth-based learning (deeper, rather than broader, coverage of content) • Blended programs of academic and technical studies • Demonstration-based assessments (in subjects other than reading, writing and mathematics) that stress the habits of the mind for inventions, experimentation, design, entrepreneurship, etc.(Maryland, Virginia) Blueprint Report Revised 10-23-09

  14. Assessment Methods • Selected Response • Constructed Response • Performance Assessment USDOE 11-13-09

More Related