Smarter Updates

Learn more about Smarter Balanced’s latest assessment resources and releases, and updates around supports available to schools, districts, and member states.

Smarter Balanced Request For Qualifications (RFQ)

Smarter Balanced Seeking Potential Technology Partners Through Request for Qualifications (RFQ)

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is soliciting information via a request for qualifications (RFQ) from organizations that are interested in collaborating to improve teaching and learning. Submissions are due February 8, 2021.

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A student wearing a mask calculates equations on a large white board. Text reads: "2020 in Review: Supporting Teaching and Learning During and Unprecedented Year"

Smarter Balanced Year in Review 2020

Supporting Teaching and Learning During an Unprecedented Year What a year! Looking back at 2020 comes with mixed emotions, but the truth is, Smarter Balanced made big strides in supporting educators at a time when they needed it most.   Classroom teaching became remote learning and teachers had to quickly adjust to this new reality. Together with students…

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Smarter Balanced Seeking Potential Partners Through Request for Qualifications (RFQ) Process

The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is soliciting information via a request for qualifications (RFQ) from organizations that are interested in collaborating to improve teaching and learning. Submissions are due February 8, 2021.

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Illustration of teachers sitting at a table talking with logos and Smarter Balanced tools floating around them.

Ten Smarter Tools for Ten Years

Smarter Balanced Celebrates a Decade of Supporting Educators Building web-based applications to support teaching has been part of Smarter Balanced’s mission from the beginning. We heard loud and clear that high-quality assessment requires equally high-quality support in the classroom to ensure student learning goals are aligned with state academic standards. The challenging work of teaching…

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Making Sense of Test-taking by Touch: Smarter Balanced Braille Accommodations.

Making Sense of Test-taking by Touch

Smarter Balanced Braille Accommodations Give Visually Impaired Students the Opportunity to Demonstrate What They Know and Can Do, Equitably Braille is a nearly 200 year old, haptic (touch-based) system for reading and writing that has given millions of people with vision impairment the ability to more effectively access education and contribute to the literary canon….

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Smarter Balanced Year in Review 2019.

Smarter Balanced Year in Review 2019

Supporting Educators and Students at a Whole New Level This was a busy year—and decade—at Smarter Balanced! We’ll ring out the “teens” invigorated by our commitment to improving learning outcomes for students. And in June, we’ll celebrate our 10th anniversary, when states and territories banded together to develop our world-class assessment system.  In 2019, we released a suite of…

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The highlighter is a universal test tool available on interim assessments, the summative test, and practice tests.

Five Built-in Test Tools Students Should Know (and Use!)

Familiarizing Students with Universal Test Tools Can Yield Confidence Boost Smarter Balanced digitally-delivered assessments (interims, the summative test, and practice tests) include a wide array of embedded universal test tools. These are available to students as part of the technology platform. Students gain confidence with the testing software when they understand how to use these…

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Educators Meet to Review and Write Smarter Balanced Test Items

Over the course of a week in Chicago, Mathematics and ELA test items were reviewed for content alignment, bias and sensitivity, and new items were developed for field-testing Classroom teachers from eight states convened July 30-August 3 to provide a “boots on the ground” perspective of student skill levels. Core to the Smarter Balanced mission,…

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