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Needed assessments

How else do we tell if instruction is working?
Burns

Think back to your school days for a moment. Do you remember taking a quiz, running the mile for time in P.E. class, performing an experiment in science class or giving an oral presentation? All of these are forms of assessment, and they were set up by your teachers to measure your progress toward a specific goal. If you met the goal, then you would move on to the next set of expectations. If you didn’t master the skill, your teacher would spend additional time helping you ensure mastery.

While educational assessment has garnered a lot of press recently, the concept of assessment isn’t new. Simply put, assessments allow teachers to see if students are learning and how well they are actually retaining what they learn. Assessment is an essential part of instruction for students, teachers and parents because it helps determine if students are meeting their educational goals, and when done effectively, assessment can influence teachers’ decisions about curriculum, instructional needs and classroom differentiation.

The Durango School District 9-R Board of Education believes that local diagnostic, formative and summative assessments – developed by our dedicated teachers – provide the immediate and long-term feedback that are one of the primary building blocks of our success. Our focus as a district is to ensure that every child makes a year’s worth of academic gain in a year, and that children who are below grade level catch up.

To achieve that goal, our district uses both internal and external assessments to measure our students’ performance. Some of the district’s current set of assessments, such as Common Formative Assessments and end-of-semester final exams, are developed locally by our teachers. Other assessments – like CMAS, PARCC and ACT – are developed outside our district and are required by the state. Both of these assessment types have a place in our educational system, and we need to ensure that they are administered thoughtfully, judiciously and appropriately. As a board, we do not want to over-test our students, and we want to ensure that assessments are relevant to our students’ academic growth and development. This is especially true for external assessments because it can take months for districts to see those results, thereby making it difficult to effectively influence the learning process.

To that end, Durango 9-R staff is developing meaningful assessments that will provide quick feedback for educators and students; this is the program known as SchoolVault. Indeed, district educators have become leaders in the state by creating a series of local assessments that are aligned to the Colorado Academic Standards and that provide timely feedback for our teachers and students. Several school districts have reached out to us to learn how to replicate our approach to assessment.

These assessments are being created by our teachers – not administrators, state officials or researchers from national education testing firms. Indeed, our teachers are taking active roles in discussing the purpose of assessments, the content that is being assessed and the ways that content is being assessed. Teachers are working together and using their professional development time to write assessment questions, ensuring quality, accuracy and consistency. Including teachers in this process is important to the board because Senate Bill 191 (Teacher Effectiveness) requires the district to base 50 percent of teachers’ evaluations on assessment results. To ensure that this evaluation process is “fair, effective, and credible” for our teachers, Durango 9-R, unlike other districts, is using results from both internal and external assessments to help evaluate teachers. Thus, district teachers aren’t being evaluated solely on a once-a-year high-stakes exam, which is developed and administered beyond the district’s local control, as in other districts.

These newly developed district assessments may actually eliminate unnecessary assessments. That is, teachers can use these assessments for their existing end-of-chapter and final exam tests – there is no need to duplicate efforts. Moreover, because the district owns these assessments, which are stored in the SchoolVault system, taxpayer funds are no longer being used to purchase off-the-shelf assessments that aren’t adequately aligned to our community’s expectations.

Today’s students need not only the basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills, but also the postsecondary and workforce readiness skills that will allow them to successfully participate in our global economy. Indeed, the Colorado State Board of Education has set lofty goals with the new 2021 High School Graduation Guidelines, including the requirement that all Colorado students must be remediation-free in order to earn their diploma. Statewide, about 40 percent of students don’t meet that standard. As a community, we must adapt our practices to meet these very demanding expectations, and our assessment program moves us in that direction.

The 9-R board welcomes and encourages open dialogue with our community. We understand that assessment is a hot topic right now, and one of our major purposes is to be responsive to major concerns our students, families and educators bring to us. We also encourage anyone with concerns to attend our bimonthly board meetings held in the 9-R administration building. Additionally, please attend the forum on the State of the School District from 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 22 at Durango Public Library. Details can be found at www.durangoschools.org.

Andy Burns is president of the Durango School District 9-R Board of Education. Reach him at aburns@durango.k12.co.us.



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