Dear Community Members,

I recently sent a letter to our parents that reads very similar to this one. The purpose is to help people better understand the issues around standardized testing and the FiveTown CSD and MSAD 28 districts' approaches to the upcoming state standardized testing in particular.

You may know that our country is in the middle of a debate about the use of standardized testing in schools. This debate is becoming more intense as many schools across the U.S., representing 49 percent of U.S. students, prepare to implement the new Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) tests this spring. The federal government requires states to administer annual testing to students in grades 3 – 8 and 11.

The states in turn require school districts to administer these tests to every student. Maine is one of the states that chose to participate in the SBAC test, although the test is being referred to within the state as the Maine Educational Assessment (MEA) in Math and English Language Arts.

For many people, there are three major areas of concern about these tests: (1) the Common Core State Standards, upon which the tests are based, (2) the actual questions in the SBAC tests, and (3) a wider concern about standardized testing. I will speak to each of these three areas of concern and outline our beliefs as a district.

1) Concerns about the Common Core: Although the adoption of these standards by most states has become very political in the past couple of years, our district has been fully supportive of the transition to Common Core standards. The original intent of these standards was to collaboratively develop a set of common standards across America to insure every student graduates with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the 21st century. It is a great vision and one that we support — increasing the rigor of standards that are taught in our classrooms will raise the preparedness of all our graduates for a competitive and changing world.

2) Concerns about the test questions: Because the new standardized tests (e.g. SBAC) were designed to measure the Common Core standards, it is logical that they would be more difficult than previous tests. There is general agreement that up to this point, most standardized tests asked questions that required only a basic level of understanding; students needed only to recall general information in order to do well on previous tests. The new tests are designed to assess students' ability to apply information. This involves complex reasoning and critical thinking. This will be a huge shift for students, as it will be a very difficult test. The bar of proficiency has been significantly raised.

Based on SBAC field tests last spring, only 41percent of 11th graders who take the test this spring are expected to achieve a score that is considered "proficient". On the math test, only 33 percent of 11th graders are expected to attain proficiency. States who have already used the test saw significant "drops" in the percentage of students who are considered proficient. We expect to see the same in our district. A much higher benchmark has been set and fewer students are likely to attain "proficiency". That being said, the test is adaptive, customizing the level of difficulty based on prior answers. It also includes "performance tasks" to mimic multilayered authentic problems to reflect students' ability to apply their knowledge. These two factors should result in a more accurate measure of student ability.

In addition to the increased difficulty, teachers in our districts who took the practice test last spring found some of the reading test questions confusing and ambiguous. Some teachers actually disagreed with the "correct" answer. That concerns us, but we hope the test becomes more reliable and meaningful as it improves in the coming years.

3) Concerns about standardized testing in general: Standardized testing provides an objective measure of the degree to which students have learned math and English language arts standards. The tests will allow us to compare results (test scores) to other schools in Maine and they will even allow us to compare our results to schools in 21 other states. This information will be interesting, but the standardized test results tend to better reflect the socioeconomics of a student population than they do school effectiveness. We believe that for an individual student, this test will provide a glimpse into student performance during one snapshot in time.

Neither the student nor the teacher will ever get the test back, let alone in a timely fashion, to inform teaching and learning. It will not be useful as a learning tool for individual students. In addition, the test only measures a slice of what will help students be successful. It doesn't measure some of the most important qualities, such as creativity, interpersonal skills, responsibility, or grit, to mention a few. Nor does it define who they are.

As a district, we have reservations about the value of our state mandated testing in helping students learn or in helping us become a better district. We believe that what matters most is what happens in the classroom on a daily basis. This is where we want to focus our attention. We take a minimalist approach to standardized test preparation. We believe that quality classroom instruction is our best use of time. We have not sacrificed significant curriculum or instruction in the name of test preparation. Arts and music and many other areas of study and interesting programming are thriving in our districts. We will spend a small amount of time (approximately 2 – 3 hours) preparing students for this test format. We certainly want our students to be familiar with the new format, question type, and get a taste for the rigor of the questions, but feel when we do our jobs well in the classroom, the rest will take care of itself.

We do worry, however, that many students and schools will ultimately be labeled as "sub par" when they are actually growing and thriving in a variety of ways that the test can't measure. Fortunately, the state of Maine will not issue school report cards this year like they have the past two. There is a little breathing room before any public labeling will begin.

Whatever our SBAC test results are, they capture only one piece of information about our success as a district. We have an ethos of continual school improvement and will always do the best we can to help students be successful at school and in their lives.

We will comply with state and federal law to administer the SBAC tests this spring, despite questioning their use in helping us become a better school district. We won't spend a lot of time preparing and we won't make decisions based on this data alone. It is a long test – about 8 hours total that we will spread over multiple days. It will be difficult for most of our students. In the meantime, know that we constantly evaluate the amount of testing in our school district, and will continue to do so, being mindful about the assessments we control.

Some states have an official process for parents to opt out of required testing with no impact upon the school district. Maine does NOT have an official opt out option.

Nonetheless, parents (or students) can make the choice to "unofficially" opt out by providing the building principal with written notification prior to testing. Please know that opting out could impact the school's ability to meet the state and federal requirement of a 95 percent participation rate, potentially leading to financial penalties. Additionally, participation of less than 90% results in an automatic "F" grade on our state report card, and participation between 90 and 95 percent results in a one-letter grade reduction. Since we won't get a report card this year, our school grades will not be affected by opting out this spring, but it will in coming years.

We hope you understand from this letter that we have some reservations about the upcoming state standardized testing. We also recognize the consequences of not meeting state participation requirements. We are going to honor our responsibility to administer the tests as required by state and federal law. At the same time, we acknowledge parents' right to make decisions they feel are in the best interest of their child.

I know this letter contains a lot of information and I appreciate you taking the time to read through to the end. If you want more information about the national debate, a good website to look at both sides of the standardized test issue is standardizedtests.procon.org/#background. To access a practice test to get a feel for the level of rigor, go to this site sbac.portal.airast.org/practice-test/

Maria Libby

Assistant Superintendent

District Assessment Coordinator