Liv Ames for EdSource

Liv Ames for EdSource

This story was updated on October. 14, 2015.

The recently released Common Cadre-aligned test results show the pct of California high school students identified as ready, or on pace to be ready by the time they graduate, for college-level English language coursework increased.

The Smarter Balanced assessments for English language language arts and math, administered to almost 420,000 juniors in California this past spring, now serve as the chief tool for California State University and nigh 80 customs colleges statewide for measuring educatee readiness in those subjects.

Students who "exceed the standard" defined by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which devised the test, are considered ready for college-level courses, including courses that provide credits toward degrees. Students who "run across the standard" are considered "conditionally gear up," which means they're on rails to exist ready by the terminate of their senior yr in high school.

These Smarter Balanced assessments this year replaced the previous test given equally function of the California State University'southward Early Assessment Programme, ofttimes referred to merely as EAP. Information technology is a program designed to identify whether loftier school inferiors are on track to be able to have credit-bearing courses in math and English linguistic communication arts. How juniors perform on the tests can decide whether students can have credit-bearing higher-level math or English courses as freshmen, or if they need to take placement tests to decide whether they need remedial courses.

About 56 per centum of high schoolhouse juniors met or exceeded the standard in English linguistic communication arts as defined by the Smarter Balanced assessment. That was a substantial increase over the 40 per centum of juniors last twelvemonth who reached the higher fix or "conditionally ready" levels under the Early Assessment Program.

Nonetheless, a significantly smaller percentage of students – 29 percent – met or exceeded the standard in math. Last year 51 percentreached the college fix or "conditionally ready" levels.

Just the lower number of students deemed college fix on math based on this yr's tests compared to the previous year is misleading. That's considering in previous years only students who had taken Algebra 2 were eligible to take the Early Assessment Program test. By contrast, all 11th-grade students were eligible to take the Smarter Counterbalanced tests.

In 2013, the terminal yr for which total data are available nether the old test, simply over half of 11th-graders were eligible to take the Early Assessment Program exam. Of those who took the examination, sixty percent did well enough to exist deemed college ready or conditionally gear up.

But equally a percentage of the entire junior class, that year just 27 percent were accounted college ready or conditionally fix. That is shut to the 29 pct accounted to take "met or exceeded the standards" on the Smarter Balanced tests students took in 2015.

Students may have struggled with the math examination considering the new Common Core-aligned math standard is more difficult than what students are used to, said Carolina Cardenas, CSU'south director of academic outreach and early assessment. Across all course levels, math scores were significantly lower than English language scores on the Smarter Balanced assessments.

"Schools take transitioned to a brand new math curriculum," Cardenas said. "These juniors are too getting used to a brand new test they've not taken before."

Deb Sigman, deputy director of assessment at WestEd and former national chair of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Executive Committee, said these new exams provide California's about reliable measurement to date of college readiness amongst high schoolhouse students.

"The process for developing the tests was extraordinarily rigorous," she said. "We had high school instructors coming together with higher ed kinesthesia to determine where nosotros wanted our students to be."

A new measurement

The 23-campus CSU created the Early Assessment Program a decade ago in an endeavour to reduce the number of incoming freshman who were required to enroll in remedial math or English coursework. The plan serves as an early on alert organization that gives unprepared students an opportunity to address academic deficiencies while in high school.

Until final year, the Early on Assessment Program was voluntary, with the students participating primarily those because applying to a CSU campus. The previous test consisted of a combination of questions on the old 11th-grade California Standards Tests, plus a writing sample and thirty additional math and English language arts questions that CSU developed.

The Early Cess Program is now based completely on Smarter Balanced scores. The Common Core-aligned tests are required for all eleventhursdaygraders, unless their parents give them permission to  opt out of taking the test.

Going forrard, CSU and state officials plan to measure all juniors for college readiness as part of the shift to the Mutual Core State Standards, which list as a primary goal preparing more students for higher and careers.

The Smarter Balanced tests, developed by a consortium that includes xviii states, are now used by 200 colleges and universities nationally to help decide if high school students are prepared for higher-level coursework.

Keric Ashley, the state Department of Educational activity'south deputy superintendent of public instruction, said state officials accept withal to analyze the data on 11thursdaygraders and therefore could not comment on what the results showed about those students' level of college readiness.

Meanwhile, land Superintendent Tom Torlakson has continued to caution against comparing any Smarter Balanced Assessment scores, including 11th-grade results, with those from previous standardized tests, instead maxim this year'due south scores should simply serve as a baseline going frontwards.

Defining higher readiness

Scores on the Smarter Balanced assessments autumn into i of four achievement levels, ranging from Level 1, or "standard non met," to Level iv, "standard exceeded."

Students who score at Level 4 will be exempt from having to take English or math placement tests later they gain admission to a California State University campus. The University of California, with dissimilar admissions requirements, does not use the Early Cess Program to appraise students' readiness for college-level work.

Those who score at Level 3 are deemed "conditionally prepare" and will be encouraged to have an approved English language class, including the CSU-designed Expository Reading and Writing, or math class above Algebra II in their high school senior year and earn a form of C or higher to become exempt from having to take placement tests.

Students who score at Level ane or 2 are considered not to exist on track to take college-level courses and would be required to accept English language or math placement tests if they gain access to a CSU campus. (Students who exercise well on Sat, ACT or Advanced Placement tests or pass AP or International Baccalaureate courses by their senior year are considered ready for college-level work regardless of their Smarter Balanced scores.)

In ii-thirds of the state'due south community colleges, how students do on the 11th-grade Smarter Balanced test will also help determine if they will be required to showtime have English or math placement tests, or if they can direct enroll in credit-begetting math or English courses.

Differences in English and math scores

Some educators had expected a higher percentage of juniors to struggle with both sections of the new tests because they were designed to exist more rigorous than the previous tests.

But that was not the case on the English language arts portion of the test.

Cardenas said the increase in the pct of loftier school juniors identified as ready or on pace to be ready for college-level courses in English linguistic communication arts could exist due to a CSU initiative that has trained high school English language teachers to prepare more students for college-level work.

For the past decade, nearly 11,000 English teachers in 700 schools in grades 7 through 12 accept participated in CSU's Expository Reading and Writing Class. The program offers training to assistance teachers develop students' proficiency in expository, belittling and belligerent reading and writing, the same skills required by Smarter Balanced tests, Cardenas said.

The program "is perfectly aligned with the new California standards, so it lends itself nicely to the new curriculum and testing mechanisms," Cardenas said. "We're quite happy to run across the numbers go up significantly on the English side."

Sigman, the state'south former deputy country superintendent of public instruction, said the unexpected growth in the percentage of juniors who met or exceeded standards in English is "a good problem to have."

She said she believes the scores testify high school students were more successful in making the transition to the Common Cadre-aligned English language arts curriculum than students in earlier grades.

Ed Sullivan, the assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs for the CSU, said the math results aren't necessarily cause for alarm from CSU'southward perspective. Co-ordinate to the country's Primary Program for Higher Education, CSU is supposed to acknowledge students ranked in the superlative third of their graduating grade.

Sullivan noted that based on their functioning on the Smarter Balanced tests, shut to one-tertiary of high school juniors – 29 percent – were accounted to be college fix or on track to be prepare past the time they graduate from loftier school.

"The important thing I saw is that more students are existence tested, far more than what we've had historically," he said.

Caroline Rodriguez, a career advisor in Los Angeles, said she encouraged all juniors this spring to prepare for the tests because of the valuable information it could provide about their level of college readiness.

"Even if you're non sure you want to go to college, it'southward important to know where your abilities are," she said. "That's what makes this examination more relevant for students than a lot of other standardized tests they take to take."

Editor's Annotation: This story was updated to indicate that comparing higher readiness rates based on the previous Early Cess Program with those based on the current EAP is misleading because only students who were more avant-garde in math preparation took the earlier test.

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