WCPSS Common Exam Overview, March 21, 2012

Problem

  1. During the summer of 2012, NCDPI announced the directive to administer about 17 content examinations for sampling student learning as a metric to populate Standard 6 of the teacher evaluation and Standard 8 of the principal evaluation.
  2. To date, DPI has issued no information about test validity, grading consistency, or grading reliability. The first MSL guide identified 2 ways to form the grading teams: one teacher with one grade or two teachers with two grades.
  3. For the second semester of the 2012-2013, WCPSS schools will administer about 70,000 exams at the high schools. Within the exam-testing window, teachers must evaluatestudent-constructed responses with the use of DPI rubrics, score the written portion, and report grades to the testing office.
  4. Teachers will administer these examinations in 25 sites over an area of 825 square miles for Wake County.
  5. The hours scheduled for instructional time in WCPSS high schools vary, but each principal must schedule a minimum of 1000 hours or 180 days for the academic year.
  6. Practice at high schools for commencement programs begin on June 4.

Solutions from the advisory committee

  1. Increase the value of fairness.
  2. Follow the instructions in the NCDPI Implementation Guide. Tighten training and security.
  3. Score student constructed responses at the building site.
  4. Count common exams as 20% of the student grade. (Pause-Policy 5530). HS principals decided NOT to exempt seniors.
  5. Each principal designs an exam schedule, calculating 4 variables: number of spare instructional hours remaining during the exam window, number of exams to grade, number of content teachers available to grade, and times for commencement programs. How do we respond to the variances and optics of the schedules?
  6. The demand for scanning and reporting multiple exams during the testing windows dedicates June 7 as the turn in day for HS exams.
  7. For the first time ever, teachers must grade student-constructed responses mandated by the state and submit score sheets by June 7. It can require as long as 20 hours to score one set of content exams at one school. (We have about 65,000 student MSL exams with multiple student-constructed responses to score.)
  8. High schools must practice, prepare for, and direct commencement programs. Seniors are not exempt from state-mandated exams. The testing office can returngrades by practice time for those administered, scored, and submitted to the testing office by May 31.
  9. Principals must guarantee compliance with required instructional hours in the school calendar law, and the schedules vary by school.
  10. DPI is revising rubrics. At this point, there is no plan to enhance the DPI rubrics.
  11. Content specialists will train API’s, principals, department chairs, and PLT leaderson how to respond to the DPI rubrics.
  12. D&A is working on a grade distribution plan. The testing office will grade seniors tested early, early colleges, and modified calendars as 3 separate cohorts. The testing office will grade scores turned in on June 7 as another cohort returned by June 10.
  13. The testing office will announce training for the test coordinators soon. Each coordinator will be the building contact for the logistics of test administration.

Next

  1. The format of the answer sheets. (tests have not been released)
  2. Analysis of unreleased information in relationship to scoring rubrics
  3. Communication to parents and the general public.

VIP: Read all information from the testing office. This update does not replicate information from the FAQ released 2/13/13 or any other updates.