Washington Statewide Assessment And Accountability 2020

Commitment to EquityLast spring, the Washington OSPI made commitments to students, schools, and communities in these fourareas:1. Support Students Furthest from Educational Justice2. Protect Health and Safety3. Provide Access to Connectivity and Hardware4. Leverage Local Expertise and Provide TrainingWashington is firmly positioned in the understanding that we must continue to promote equity and accessfor all students by directing supports where they are most needed. The action that accompanies this beliefis to adjust how we operationalize our commitment to equity by focusing on civil rights obligations,differences in student access to the resources that are needed to provide an adequate opportunity to learn,and to strengthen self-efficacy/beliefs and belonging indicators. In this strategic waiver we prioritizehistorically underserved youth including English learners (ELs) and Dual Identified students who also receivespecial education services. Supreme Court decisions affirm all public schools must take steps to ensure thatELs meaningfully participate in educational programs. By requiring all state-identified language learnerstake the ELPA21 and/or WIDA Alternate ACCESS, and extending the assessment window, districts andfamilies will have access to data supporting their meaningfully participation in educational programs, accessto core content instruction and exit the Bilingual program in a timely manner.These commitments are stronger now than ever before. To adhere to this commitment, OSPI has madeclear that districts, schools, and classrooms must create the conditions for students to be safe, to buildrelationships, and to set high and rigorous goals not only for learning, but for their path beyond their K–12experience. To achieve this, educators must optimize opportunities for student learning through highquality, engaging, and rigorous instruction informed by formative assessments for learning. In thisdocument, Washington state OSPI outlines our commitment to equity and our plan to support studentlearning by prioritizing instructional time, assessing a representative sample of students across the state,and through the use of locally determined and impactful classroom-based authentic, productiveassessments, including the Student Survey. Many districts will choose to use assessments such as themathematics and ELA interim assessments that are currently available statewide.Summary of RequestAddressing student learning needs requires a prioritization of targeted, effective, and engaging instruction,led by educators informed by current student-level data. Our current reality, in which some students receivein-person instruction in a school facility, while others continue with remote instruction, does not permit thehistorical administration of statewide assessments to at least 95% of our student population, nor do wethink we should implement previous assessment plans. We will use this opportunity to modify ourassessment plan. While additional information is provided later in this application (see Table 1), in summary,our plan for 2020–21 includes: Prioritizing support to districts to implement locally determined English language arts (ELA),mathematics, and science assessments for all students to collect student-level data and report7

annually to families and communities about student learning.Administering the Smarter Balanced assessments, Washington Comprehensive Assessment ofScience (WCAS) and the Washington Access to Instruction and Measurement (WA-AIM) to arepresentative sample of students to get meaningful statewide results in ELA, mathematics, andscience. The tests would be administered to 3rd and 7th graders in ELA, 5th and 10th graders inmathematics, and 8th graders in science, and include students in all federal and state requiredstudent groups.The methodology will be a stratified, two-stage cluster sampling plan, developed in collaborationwith the University of Washington. It involves stratifying districts by their educational service district(ESD), randomly sampling districts in each ESD (stage 1), and then randomly selecting schools withinselected districts (stage 2). All students in that grade level within selected schools would be assessedon the appropriate grade-specific subject test. Approximately 10,000 students in each of the fivegrades would be expected to test, for a total of approximately 50,000 students assessed.The analysis, combined with other measures, will help the state determine the educational impact ofthe pandemic on specific student groups.Reporting the percentage of students who were assessed and not assessed, based on the sample.Continuing to provide districts with test administration resources and require:o In-person testing for the English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA21) and alternateassessment for English Learners (EL),o The timely completion of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) individualdiagnostic evaluation and re-evaluation requirements, ando Participation in the statewide assessment if selected as part of the sample.Implementing a student survey that collects information regarding access to educational resources,opportunity to learn, and self-efficacy/beliefs, results of which will help inform instructional andsupport practices and contextualize assessment data.Continuing to implement the Washington ESSA Consolidated Plan for the 2021–22 year in thefollowing areas:o Completing and reporting graduation rate and School Quality or Student Success (SQSS)Indicator calculations for: 9th grade on track Advanced course-taking (dual credit) Chronic absenteeismAdministering the English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA21) and WIDA Alternate ACCESSfor ELL and report EL progress.Waiving the Washington ESSA Consolidated Plan requirements for the 2021–22 year in thefollowing areas:o Completing and reporting on student academic growth as measured by Student GrowthPercentiles (SGPs) for elementary and middle schools.o Reporting the: Number and percentage of students with most significant cognitive disabilities takingan alternate assessment (students with significant cognitive disabilities will beincluded in the representative sample for testing and Washington will provide dataon participation and representation within the larger sample for students taking thealternate assessment), and8

Interim progress toward meeting goals on proficiency on annual assessments.Unprecedented Challenges in 2020–21As Washington students returned to instruction, almost all of which was remote learning, this fall, the focuswas, and continues to be, in the tending to student immediate needs: physical, social-emotional, andacademic. We know that in our communities, many students and families have experienced trauma relatedto the extended impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every student demographic has experienced the impactof the pandemic, but it continues to disproportionately impact students with disabilities, English learners,students experiencing homelessness, students experiencing poverty, students of color, and other studentsfacing opportunity gaps identified in the data.Educators prioritize face-to-face services for students. Wherever possible, districts are serving students inschool buildings by working in partnership with the local health authority and by adhering to rigoroushealth and safety protocols. As the pandemic continues past the first year, a majority of Washington’sstudents continue to be served through continuous remote learning. All school buildings were closedMarch through June 2020, and schools served students through remote instruction. This fall as thepandemic continued, school facility closures persisted in many areas throughout the state. In December2020, fewer than 15% of Washington state’s students were served physically in school buildings. Schoolsystems are prioritizing in-person instruction for youngest learners and for learners furthest fromeducational justice. Those schools that have started to provide in-person instruction, typically throughhybrid approaches where students are in-person for a portion of the week and continuing remote learningthe rest of the week, have generally done so with students in grades PreK–2, with plans to continueincreasing in-person instruction for students in higher grades.Through OSPI’s partnerships with Washington State Department of Health (DOH), local health authorities,and Governor Inslee, parameters have been established to determine when it is safe for a school district toserve students in person. OSPI is collecting weekly data from school districts, and as of February 15, 2021,around 30% of students are experiencing some in-person learning. As of March 2021, 60% of our schools inWashington state have at least one grade back in person. Regardless of how schools are serving students,students will have missed some instruction accomplished in a typical learning year. OSPI asserts that thislost instruction is best assessed and intervened at the classroom level using locally determined assessmentsin order to gauge the extent of the negative impacts of the pandemic on student learning and to plan forlearning recovery for each student. In addition, districts are using these assessments to plan for learningrecovery programs for students beginning in spring (March 1, 2021) and summer (June 1, 2021),emphasizing acceleration academies rather than remediation strategies.In order to prioritize instructional time as students return to school buildings, Washington state willimplement a sampling method for the statewide assessment. This will allow for the collection ofinformation on how the pandemic has impacted student learning across the state, without necessitating thedisruption in instruction for all students. The representative sample will focus on students in grades 3 and 7for the English language arts assessment, grades 5 and 10 for the mathematics assessment, and 8th gradefor the science assessment. This reduces the impact of the assessment from 17 grades and content areas ifall students were administered the assessment to only five grades and contents assessed through the9

sampling methodology. This will enable OSPI to gather results on a statewide level and show those resultsby student groups of those students sampled. OSPI will be able to determine disproportionate impactamong student groups as well as the impact of in-person versus remote instructional modalities.Summative State Assessment Conditions and UsesAs charged through No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), and nowthrough Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Washington state has employed a robust system for deploying,administering, scoring, analyzing, and reporting assessment results for ELA and mathematics through theSmarter Balanced Assessments (SBA), for science through Washington Comprehensive Assessment ofScience (WCAS) , and for ELA, mathematics, and science for students with the most significant cognitivedisabilities through the Washington Access to Instruction and Measurement (WA-AIM). These assessmentsare used at the state level to measure how well students are meeting grade-level learning standards, nomatter where they go to school throughout Washington state’s K–12 public schools.The statewide assessment results (i.e., SBA, WCAS, WA-AIM) are system-level indicators, and are tied tograduation pathways, to student and school supports, accountability, and to program funding. However,reliable and validly interpreted results are dependent on a strict set of conditions for both student testtaking experiences and for appropriate data use and reporting. Due to the pandemic and state and localhealth guidelines, Washington’s schools will be better equipped to provide the necessary student testtaking experience safely for a subset of students (i.e., a representative sample of those students who would,under normal circumstances, test), by using the flexibility of the 95% participation waiver.In 2020–21, the foundational conditions for administration of summative assessments in Washingtoncannot be safely met for all students. Summative test results for assessments administered remotely wouldnot be reliable, comparable, generalizable, or valid for their intended purposes and would needlesslyremove students from additional instructional opportunities. For this reason, Washington has determinedthat remote testing, meaning the student and the test proctor are in different physical locations, would notbe an option provided. Instead, Washington proposes to administer state assessments to a representativesample of students who would otherwise take the SBA, WCAS, and WA-AIM tests for purposes ofgenerating state-level data that can be used for system analyses such as comparison of student groups.With this approach, educators could leverage administration practices that are familiar from previous years,even if those administrations are carried out with fewer students and/or smaller groups of students. Finally,district, school, and classroom-selected assessments would be used to determine student-level learningand to design instruction during learning recovery, acceleration, and the following school year.Technical Considerations and Assessment Experts’ RecommendationsOSPI engaged Washington’s Assessment National Technical Advisory Committee (NTAC) several times inproactive conversations about spring 2021 summative testing. Based on discussions in February and earlyMarch 2021, the group of assessment experts developed this statement regarding OSPI’s consideration of asampling model:“NTAC reviewed the developing plans for conducting spring 2021 assessments by the Office of Superintendentof Public Instruction (OSPI). It is the intent of OSPI to replace the usual census testing design with a sampling10

model. While the sampling model has not yet been finalized (at the submission of this statement), OSPI hasbeen working with researchers at the University of Washington to generate a suitable design. NTAC supportsthis effort by OSPI to modify statewide testing in a way that both complies, in good faith, with federalassessment requirements and also recognizes the many challenges and obstacles faced by Washington'sschools due to the ongoing pandemic. The TAC discussed a number of concerns regarding the interpretabilityand validity of the assessment results that will be produced by conducting testing this spring. However, theeffort by OSPI to try to implement a modified version of statewide assessment under difficult circumstances isbelieved to be a reasonable approach.”Meetings with NTAC members in May and September 2020 included discussions of testing studentsremotely (i.e., the student and the test proctor are in different physical locations). In short, the consensusrecommendation of the NTAC members was that Washington should not administer summative tests inspring 2021 in remote settings. The NTAC members expressed concerns about the validity of any inferencesand interpretations made based on results, and questions about equity during remotely administeredassessments.Of primary concern was the wide range of instructional approaches used throughout Washington thisschool year. Nearly all students began the school year in remote instruction situations—assuming that theywere able to engage with instruction due to the newness and difficulty of the start of the year under thepandemic conditions—and some may end up spending the majority of the school year in a remote learningmodel, as reported by districts and shared through OSPI’s School Reopening Data Dashboard. The NTACexpressed that any assessment given remotely to those students is likely to measure those remoteinstruction situations more than measuring student learning.Some examples they gave were: Students’ remote learning environments vary so widely that standardized administration acrossthese variations is not possible. The variability in learning environments will increase the possibility of testing irregularities, as well astest security concerns. There will be equity disparities as it is not feasible to provide students with the necessarysupports/accommodations during remote testing (e.g., a trained scribe, print-on-demand).They concluded that the results of remote assessments would not give valid and reliable information toeducators and families about actual student learning with respect to the state learning standards. Inaddition, they noted that the tests, while designed to be administered online, were not designed to beadministered remotely. Because the tests were not designed in this way, the tests and test results have notbeen evaluated for accountability purposes when administered remotely.The NTAC members were also clear that there should be no high-stakes decisions based on any test scoresfrom spring 2021, especially any tests given remotely.In addition, some NTAC members recommended that Washington use the interruption in testing as anopportunity to develop a 5- to 10-year plan for state assessments that are more informative for classroomeducators and families. This plan would start by examining lower-stakes assessments, such as state11

provided mathematics and ELA interim assessments, and locally determined assessments, as a tool toprovide more real-time and actionable information for educators, students, and families to use.Washington’s plan to gather a representative sample of students to test would attend to some of theconcerns raised by NTAC members. Results from testing a representative sample will provide a statewidepicture, rather than a school or district picture, of learning gaps that can be explored better and furtherthrough locally determined assessments. And, finally, through sampling, we hope to minimize thedisruption that assessment would have

Mar 22, 2021 · science. The tests would be administered to 3rd and 7th graders in ELA, 5th and 10th graders in mathematics, and 8th graders in science, and include students in all federal and state required student groups. The methodology will be a stratified, two-stage cluster sampling plan, deve