Press Release: Changes in state assessments for students in Tennessee have occurred on a somewhat regular basis; in fact, some people may claim that changes were put in place for which our schools were not prepared to follow. Case in point: the online testing situation in 2015-2016. Although many school systems prepared to assess their students in grades 3-8 and grades 9-12 students enrolled in classes with End of Course tests in English/Language Arts and Mathematics, the promised online platform was not ready. To add insult to injury, the pencil-and-paper format of the TNReady assessment was not shipped in time for students in grades 3-8 to take their tests at all. Despite these setbacks experienced last year, the state of Tennessee has plans in place for students to complete their assessments successfully in 2016-2017. Some aspects of the testing plan remain the same, but there are changes in store for students in Coffee County Schools.
With respect to the testing platform, students in grades 3-8 will take all of their assessments with pencil-and-paper this year. However, Coffee County students in grades 9-12 will complete their English/Language Arts and Mathematics tests on computers. Also, students who were previously assessed with a portfolio system will now take their tests on computer. This plan is part of a gradual phase-in of online testing over a three-year period. As part of this new online testing plan, a new vendor contracted with the state of Tennessee to provide assessment and scoring of these assessments.
Additional testing requirements for some students will also be in place this year. The state of Tennessee has developed a new test for students in Grade 2. Coffee County students in Grade 2 will take this test in the spring semester. At the high school level, students in Grade 11 who want to graduate with a regular diploma must take either the ACT or SAT to fulfill part of their graduation requirement. The state has provided the opportunity for students to take one of these college readiness tests during the school day instead of reporting to a national testing center on a Saturday morning.
Another change involving testing concerns how much weight test results contribute to a student’s overall grade. In past years, the results from state testing made up 25% of the grade for the second semester. Since there were no test results available for 2015-2016, testing did not contribute any weight for final grades last year. For the next three years, the following scale has been proposed for the percentage that testing will contribute to a student’s final grade:
2016-2017: 10% of the final grade
2017-2018: 15% of the final grade
2018-2019 and beyond: 15-25% of the final grade
Each school district will decide the weight of state testing for 2018-2019 and beyond within the amount allowed by the State Board of Education.
State Assessments and Coffee County Schools
