Becoming “Smarter Balanced Ready” is about more than test preparation. We looked at school districts in six Smarter Balanced member states/territories that successfully implemented the Smarter Balanced Assessment system and found some big ideas that other educators can use.
A group of teacher leaders in Washington state participated in an informative Sunday night Twitter chat about Smarter Balanced assessments. Using the hashtag #WATeachLead, the teachers, who are a part of the CORElaborate WA program, shared their thoughts on state …
A new website is now available to teachers, parents, and students to learn more about Smarter Balanced assessments. The Sample Items website allows users to explore the kinds of questions used on end-of-year tests in English language arts (ELA) and math.
More than 90 educators from 10 Smarter Balanced states met in Houston in February to help build resources for the Digital Library, a free online collection of high-quality instructional and professional learning resources. Twice each year, educators convene to create new …
Smarter Balanced and MetaMetrics, developer of the Lexile Framework for Reading and Quantile Framework for Mathematics, collaborated to link the Smarter Balanced assessment system to the Lexile and Quantile Frameworks. This alignment provides the option for Smarter Balanced members to report a student’s …
Education Week covered the continuing issue of students taking remedial, or high school-level courses, when they enter college. Many states are moving to 12th grade transition courses in math and English language arts to help increase students’ readiness. Read the full …
Recently, the University of California at Los Angeles informed the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium it will no longer serve as our fiscal agent. Our three-year agreement ends on June 30, 2017. What does that mean? See the facts below. There …
A new opinion piece by Scott Sargrad and Coleton Whitaker of the Center for American Progress highlights the fact that states that have maintained high standards and better assessments, like Smarter Balanced, have showed gains in the second year of score reporting. …
Washington became the second state to release a new online test score guide to help families and students better understand what scores mean. Information is available for Smarter Balanced tests in grades 3-8 and high school in math and English …
The Oregonian newspaper examined Smarter Balanced scores throughout the state and discovered four Oregon high schools that “outperformed the rest.” The reason? The schools’ dedication to teaching Common Core State Standards in math and English language arts. An excerpt of the …
