Learn more about new state assessments that start in April

California has a new student assessment system that replaces the Standardized Testing and Reporting (STAR) Program.

The new system is known as the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) and is part of California’s new comprehensive plan for student success.The results of the CAASPP will provide important information that will be used to monitor student progress, help teachers make decisions about individual student’s academic needs, and make sure that all students leave high school prepared for college and career.

The Smarter Balanced Assessments are part of the CAASPP and will be administered in San Diego Unified beginning in April. Individual schools will determine their site’s testing schedule and will be providing that information to parents and students prior to testing.The questions and answers below have been developed to provide a better understanding of the new assessments.

What are the Smarter Balanced Assessments?
• The Smarter Balanced assessments are new computer-based tests that measure student knowledge of California’s English language arts and mathematics standards. These new assessments replace the former paper-based, multiple-choice assessments for students in grades 3-8 and 11. The first statewide administration of these assessments will take place in spring 2015.

Why are new assessments needed in California?
• California has adopted the more rigorous academic Common Core State Standards that emphasize not only subject knowledge, but also the critical thinking, analytical writing, and problem-solving skills students need to be successful in college and career. These standards set a higher bar for California students to help ensure they are prepared to succeed in the future. Because what students need to know and be able to do has changed, our tests must change as well.
• California’s new assessment system represents the next step in a comprehensive plan to promote high-quality teaching and learning and improve student outcomes. This plan recognizes that assessments can play an important role in promoting and modeling high-quality instruction.

How were these new assessments developed?
• California worked with 21 other states as part of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium to develop these new assessments, as well as the professional and instructional resources provided to help students, teachers and schools throughout the year.
• Educators – from K-12 to higher education – were deeply involved in the design, testing and scoring of these new assessments. California conducted both pilot and statewide field tests of Smarter Balanced assessments over the last two years.
• Last year, California suspended its use of existing assessments in ELA and Math to give teachers time to focus on refining instruction of California’s more rigorous standards, to give students time to begin deeper learning, and to give schools time to prepare to administer these computer-based tests effectively.

How are Smarter Balanced Assessments an improvement over previous statewide tests?

• The Smarter Balanced assessment system uses both computer-based and computer-adaptive tests, providing students with a wider range of questions tailored to more accurately identify the knowledge and skills individual students have mastered.
• The tests include performance tasks that challenge students to demonstrate critical thinking and problem- solving, and to apply their knowledge and skills to real-world problems.
• The tests are taken online, and results are available to teachers, schools and school districts much more quickly than results from previous tests.
• The new assessments are aligned with the skills students need to start taking courses for credit at California State University campuses and other colleges. Based on their results, students in the 11th grade will have more information about the type of courses and level of rigor required in their final year of high school.
• The new computer-based tests include supports for English learners and students with special needs, allowing these students the ability to effectively demonstrate their knowledge and skills.
• The new assessment system is designed to measure student growth over time, which was not possible in California’s previous system, and will provide teachers and schools important information to guide learning.

What will the Smarter Balanced tests measure?
• Smarter Balanced tests provide one measure of student knowledge of the subject matter, critical thinking, analytical writing, and problem solving skills they need to prepare for and succeed in today’s world.
• These assessments provide important information as to whether students are on track to pursue college and career by the time they graduate from high school. The tests provide timely and actionable student information so that teachers and schools can adjust and improve teaching to ensure students have the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in school and beyond.

What results can we expect from the Smarter Balanced Tests?
• The new tests are too fundamentally different from the old exams to make any reliable comparisons between old scores and new. This year’s results will establish a new baseline for the progress we expect students to make over time.
• Based on trial runs of the new assessments in California and other states, many if not most students will need to make significant progress to reach the standards set for math and literacy that accompany college and career readiness.
• Over time, as students experience multiple years of instruction related to the skills tested by the new assessments, California’s results will show improved achievement. (In 2002, California’s new STAR tests also set a new baseline for achievement and student results improved quickly over time.)
• Parents will receive a report of their child’s scores in the summer. But no student, parent or teacher should be discouraged by these new baseline scores, which will not be used to determine whether a student moves on to the next grade. Rather, the scores will represent an opportunity to focus on the needs of students and support teachers and schools in their work to achieve college and career readiness.

How will this system help improve teaching and learning?
• The Smarter Balanced assessments are an academic check-up, designed to give teachers the feedback they need to improve instruction. The tests measure critical thinking, analytical writing, problem solving, and subject area knowledge, providing teachers with multiple sources of actionable information about student strengths and areas where students need additional support.
• The system provides two types of interim assessments that teachers and schools can use to assess student learning at key points in the instructional year and to measure student preparedness for year-end summative tests. Both of these tests provide information for teachers to adjust and differentiate teaching in response to the results.

• The system provides a Digital Library of professional learning and instructional resources to help teachers assess individual student learning during instruction, provide feedback to students in a timely manner, and adjust teaching and learning as needed.

If you would like more information about the CAASPP, visit the California Department of Education (CDE) website at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/ca/ .

San Diego Unified spends more than an hour on the "Hour of Code"

Last week during Computer Science Education Week, more than 8,500 San Diego Unified students participated in The Hour of Code, a global movement to expose students to coding. In San Diego Unified, however, it is more appropriate to call it Hours of Code. Students spent hours developing many of the talents they will need to succeed after graduation. Writing computer code as a team teaches them how to work together, think through problems logically, identify solutions, and persist until they reach their goals—all valuable skills in the world and the workplace.

Here are some of the highlights of the week:

• Steve Stawski from Sony Electronics spoke to Lori William’s Criminal Justice students at Lincoln High School about the importance of coding in the world of criminal justice and how coding is an important field for our national security.
  
• All of the teachers and students at Innovation Middle School took part in the Hour of Code for the entire week. In addition to learning about the benefits of coding and computer science, students created their own computer programs using Scratch and Hopscotch. Elijah Galbraith-Knapp, from the San Diego Sockers along with a representative of Congressman Scott Peters came to see student programs and play some of the games students created. One group of students walked to Hawthorne Elementary School to teach their younger peers how to code.
  
• At Angier Elementary School, the students in Mr. Olsson’s after-school coding club were Hour of Code ambassadors for the third grade.
  
• The Control Group and Junior Achievement partnered to teach code to the Hoover High School Academy of Information Technology students. These students in turn, taught code to students at Wilson Middle School and Rosa Parks Elementary School.
  
• Kearny High School students in CorriAnne Burgess’s Geographic Information Systems class created an interactive map to display all the schools and the students in San Diego Unified that participated in The Hour of Code. See the map.
  
• Qualcomm hosted training for administrators and teachers at their Thinkabit Lab.
  
• Computer Science Principles teachers Barbara Adams, Morse High School, and Ray Kinne, San Diego High School of Business and Leadership, were invited to be part of the national celebration in Washington, D.C. at the 100 Teachers Meeting. They joined the students invited to the White House to do the Hour of Code with President Obama and Vice President Biden.

“With careers in computers slated to be some of the fast-growing jobs in the upcoming years, it has become increasingly important to provide young people with both exposure to these opportunities and the skills necessary to acquire jobs in computers,” said Sean Sharokhi of The Control Group. “We hope this event will encourage the students to continue to work hard and to ultimately consider pursuing a post-secondary education and/or career in computer sciences.”

For more information contact Gail Lake, program specialist, Office of College, Career & Technical Education, at glake@sandi.net .

Common Core settles in across district

San Diego Unified and other districts across the nation continue to prepare students to compete in the global marketplace as they teach students to think critically, learn independently and communicate better in order to meet the new guidelines outlined in the Common Core State Standards.

These standards align with the district’s goals set forth in Vision 2020 to create a quality school in every neighborhood, and more specifically, provide students with a broad and challenging curriculum.

Adopted in 2010, the Common Core State Standards are a set of academic standards that establish clear and consistent guidelines for what every K-12 student across the country should know and be able to do in math and English language arts. Implementation of the Common Core, including how the standards are taught, the curriculum developed, and the materials used to support teachers as they help students reach the standards, is led entirely at the state and local levels.

“It’s important to remember that Common Core is not a curriculum,” said Jim Solo, executive director of leadership and learning. “It’s a shift in how subjects are taught to students and a change in what we expect students to do with the material we teach. How we assess students is also changing. “

The district’s focus this year is twofold: there is continued emphasis on making sure principals and teachers receive guidance and materials needed to teach students the way the standards demand; and schools are preparing students for the new assessment under Common Core, the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP), which will be administered for the first time this year starting in May.

Last year, the district hosted numerous professional development sessions for principals to support them in their understanding of Common Core so they could lead it at their site as well as provide support for their teachers. This year, the district has scheduled more than 100 professional development sessions for teachers that are organized around four themed learning cycles.

Teacher participation in Professional Learning Communities, which allow teachers to share best practices at the ground level, has also proven effective in preparing teachers to teach to the Common Core Standards.

As teachers become more proficient in delivering the content, student progress will continue to advance as well.

There is concern, however, that as the district transitions to more demanding curriculum and new assessments are put in place, students may be missing out on valuable instruction and test scores may appear lower than they have in the past.

Solo recognizes these concerns but thinks that the Common Core curriculum is so much more rigorous than the previous material and the demands are so much more that we are more likely to see growth in student knowledge rather than any loss in instruction.

“You have to remember the tools [for measuring] are extremely different than any tools that have been used in the past,” Solo said. “It’s not just simply asking students multiple choice questions, which was what you had with the CST (California Standards Tests). Now, they have to respond in writing, they have to do tasks with their peers, then come back and write about it. In addition, there will be some multiple choice questions as well as short and longer answer questions. We’ve never assessed students this way in California on a state exam.”

Students in grades 3-8 and grade 11 will take the CAASPP during the testing window that stretches from April to June. Parents will be notified by schools when testing will occur for each grade level, but can check the district’s website now for general testing dates.

To prepare students for May assessments, the district has been continually updating and refining the curriculum that is being taught to meet the Common Core Standards. It spent the last several years strengthening the integrated math curriculum and will do the same with English language arts over this year. History is integrated with the English language arts portion of the Common Core Standards while science standards are being revised and will ultimately follow the Next Generation Science Standards.

“The integrated math curriculum is very strong and will prepare students for college,” Solo said. “It offers multiple pathways at the secondary level that will enable students to reach calculus by their senior year.”

Common Core allows for a deeper understanding of a subject while at the developmental stages. Rather than learning a little about a lot of topics, the curriculum is setup to allow more time for understanding the fundamentals. For instance in math, K-3 level students focus heavily on numbers, being able to break apart numbers and understand numbers in multiple ways. In grades 4-5, there is heavy emphasis on fractions. Probability, which used to be part of elementary school, is not addressed until middle school.

“They’ve done a lot of shifting around of the topics,” Solo said. “A great deal of the research from around the world shows that many countries with really smart math students go really deep in the things that matter at the developmental stage. Then it progresses from there.”

Ultimately, the goal with Common Core is to prepare all students for the global workplace.

“We have a lot of jobs in the country right now that American students are not qualified for. Engineering jobs being one example,” Solo said. “When you think about Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), Common Core aligns itself very well to STEM. We are trying to produce students who are ready for the jobs of the future.”

Welcome message from Superintendent Cindy Marten

Welcome to the 2014-15 School Year!

As a teacher, principal and now superintendent, those words carry a great deal of meaning for me. The opening of a new school year offers us amazing opportunities to make a difference in the lives of our students. I am looking forward to the year ahead.

I know the start of the new school year also brings a great deal of excitement to parents and students. Our principals, teachers and support staff have been working hard to make sure the excitement extends from Day One through Day 180. Our focus for the start of the year is developing academic, physical and social environments worthy of all students. This focus is fully aligned with our Vision 2020 of creating quality schools in every neighborhood.

Across the district, from bus drivers to custodians, food service associates to administrative support professionals, principals to teachers, we are all committed to making sure our students are on the pathway to success. We are ready!

The implementation of the Common Core State Standards is at the forefront of teaching and learning. Our principals and teachers have spent time over the summer fully engaged in professional development. The Common Core State Standards will help position all students for the future – THEIR future in which critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration and creativity are essential. Students will be better prepared for post-secondary education and careers, and ultimately become actively literate contributing participating members of society.

In addition, we remain cautiously encouraged about the budget passed by the State’s legislators and the reinvestment in public education. Although we still face financial challenges and will continue to be prudent with our dollars, there is hope. The new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) changed the structure of how school districts received funding from the state level. Our district’s Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), which involved input from multiple stakeholders, has been approved and will provide a road map with clearly defined metrics that aligns academic priorities with our budget.

The start of a new school year gives us a renewed sense of anticipation, hope and enthusiasm as we work collaboratively to assure that each child in our district receives the best education possible. I look forward to working beside you as we continue making our Vision 2020 a reality.

Best,

Cindy Marten
Superintendent

Supt. Marten challenges TV anchors with Common Core field test question

IN THE NEWS: What kind of questions are coming up on the new California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress tests? Supt. Cindy Marten visited Fox 5 San Diego to find out if the anchors could answer an 11th grade field test question. Watch video»

Superintendent: Common Core "will yield authentic learning"

IN THE NEWS: Superintendent writes that the new standards "represent a necessary and urgent shift in what we must expect our students to know and be able to do in order to be contributing, participating members of our changing society. " Read more from UT San Diego»

Opinion: Don't fear Common Core

IN THE NEWS: With the curriculum, coming soon to California, students and teachers are discovering new ways of reading, thinking and communicating with one another. Read more from the Los Angeles Times»

Common Core Standards will help student achievement rises continue — Supt. Marten

IN THE NEWS: Making the rounds of the local news shows, Supt. Cindy Marten (joined in some interviews by SCPA Class President Michaela Valk) talked about new national standards – the Common Core State Standards – that are being phased in at San Diego Unified schools; tests will change in Spring.

Watch video»

• KUSI-TV»
• KPBS-TV»
• NBC San Diego»
• San Diego 6»

Common Core State Standards moving from paper to the classroom

The Common Core State Standards are designed to reflect the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. The Next Generation Assessments, which are aligned to the new standards, are scheduled to be implemented in 2014-15. San Diego Unified is already in the process of implementing the standards into classroom curriculum.

Common learning goals provide a clear vision of what educators and parents in all states should aim for. These learning goals help ensure that students meet college and work expectations, are prepared to succeed in a global economy and society, and are provided with rigorous content and application of higher knowledge thinking. Benchmarked against international standards, the Common Core Standards assist students in their preparation to complete the requirements for enrollment at a California public university

To learn more, watch a three-minute video and visit www.sandi.net/commoncore .

Revamping the “core” of education

When Tina Rasori teaches math to fourth- and fifth-graders at Fay Elementary School in City Heights, she expects her students to do more than calculate the correct answers. Students work through problems and demonstrate how they arrive at answers. After conferring with classmates, they also must critique the reasoning of their peers. This is math infused with Common Core, academic standards that are set to hit California classrooms in the 2014-15 school year. Read more from UT San Diego»

Cursive Writing's Importance at Benchley Weinberger Explored

IN THE NEWS: Story talks to teachers, students about learning cursive writing. San Diego, California News Station - KFMB Channel 8 - cbs8.com

New Video, Web Page Highlight Common Core Standards

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers.

So far, 45 states, including California, have adopted the Common Core Standards. Learn more by watching a short video and visiting www.sandi.net/commoncore .