WestEd experts will present on various assessment topics at the Council of Chief State School Officers’ (CCSSO) 2022 National Conference on Student Assessment (NCSA), June 27–29, at the Marriott Marquis Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia.
Since 1971, the CCSSO National Conference on Student Assessment has been the trusted forum for assessment practitioners to learn and reflect upon current and emerging trends in education and educational assessments.
The conference’s theme is Fueling Acceleration: How Meaningful Assessment Systems Can Drive Student Learning. Participants will have an opportunity to discuss lessons learned from assessment results over the past several years, how those results and other indicators support learning, and the implications for the future of assessment and accountability.
Assessment and accountability experts from WestEd will contribute to the rich collection of available sessions. Note our schedule of presentations below.
Monday, June 27
Session: Let’s Talk K–2: This Is, After All, Where It All Begins
Time and Location: 4:00 p.m.– 5:00 p.m. / International 3
WestEd Presenter: Joanne Jensen
There is a plethora of information regarding assessments for grades 3–8, but what about kindergarten and the early grades? What does an aligned, valid, and reliable assessment system look like for our youngest students? Michigan has spent several years creating its vision of a high-quality interim assessment for kindergarten through second-grade students. The Early Literacy and Mathematics Benchmark Assessment (ELMBA) align with Michigan’s Career and College Ready Standards. Maryland is just beginning to develop its K–2 assessment model and plans to include foundational measurements in its existing grade 3 summative assessment to identify students with possible reading difficulties. Both Michigan and Maryland know the key to student success is identifying students’ strengths and weaknesses in literacy and mathematics skills. It is then that students will receive the instruction, intervention, and support they need to become successful students in the future.
Tuesday, June 28
Session: Multiple Facets of a Successful State Assessment System, as Represented by Delaware’s System
Time and Location: 2:30 p.m.– 3:30 p.m. / International 9
WestEd Presenters: Kevin King
The Delaware Department of Education has developed an innovative, comprehensive, and balanced science assessment system composed of three components. The summative assessments are administered in grade 5, grade 8, and biology and focus on learning transfer. End-of-Unit Assessments are developed by the state and provided for teachers to apply as they feel appropriate within the context of their instruction for grades 3 through 10. These assessments provide information on student learning to inform teaching at the classroom, school, and district levels. The third component of this assessment system is a professional learning component. The state’s summative assessment development vendor has been leveraged to deliver a series of assessment literacy workshops to support educators in improving their classroom assessment practices and their knowledge of the standards. The assessment tools developed by the participants are made available to all educators in the state for use in their classrooms.
Wednesday, June 29
Session: When and How to Conduct Standards Validation
Time and Location: 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. / International 7
WestEd Presenter: Marianne Perie
The standards that classify student performance on assessments into categories are critical in assisting various stakeholders in interpreting performance on the assessment. At multiple times during the life of each assessment, these performance-level standards need to be reviewed and validated to ensure that the meaning of the performance-level classifications is maintained. Standards validation meetings are used to determine whether changes to the assessment program over time result in the need to adjust or retain the performance-level cut scores to maintain their meaning. This session will explore the various aspects of deciding when it is recommended to use a standards validation process and the implementation of multiple procedures. This will help departments and practitioners learn the lessons from programs that have completed a standards validation meeting for when this may be required for their programs.
Session: Fueling Acceleration by Engaging Teachers in the Assessment Process
Time and Location: 1:00 p.m.– 2:00 p.m. / International 2
WestEd Presenters: Andrew Latham and Patty Armstrong
This session will focus on how Texas is fueling accelerated student learning by actively involving teachers in its plans to redesign the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR©) program. The Texas Education Agency will describe how it partnered with the Bureau of Indian Education Comprehensive Center to convene teacher focus groups in July 2020 to explore how STAAR changes can help encourage improved instructional practices. Bureau of Indian Education will then describe a series of item development workshops conducted with Texas teachers in July 2021 to produce 670 innovative new items for release and use by Texas teachers. Next, teachers who participated in both workshops will share their perspectives on how states should involve teachers in the summative assessment process, to improve student learning. The discussant will then summarize lessons learned for states to consider as they work with their teachers and assessment programs.