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Fall Testing Matters!
Fellow Educators,
As we begin another year of learning and incredible student growth, I am urging you all to promote the idea that fall test scores matter. So many times I’ve heard teachers and students say “oh, that’s okay, the fall test doesn’t matter anyway.” I understand the message that you are trying to send to your students:
“It doesn’t matter to me what deficits you have. I know I can help you reach your full potential this year. Don’t worry, you will learn and grow with me.”
I admire you for having this attitude and communicating this with students; however, we all need students to realize that their fall test scores DO matter in many ways. First and foremost, due to the massive interruption in learning from COVID, we have a huge gap in the longitudinal data on our students. We need consistent and reliable assessment data on students to best predict the path they are on and intervene as necessary. We simply can’t do this if we only have one reliable data point from last spring. We use fall test scores for all of the following:
To identify specific strengths and challenge areas to focus instruction to meet the needs of all students.
To place students into specific interventions or courses such as strategic reading.
To identify students for potential placement in advanced courses or academically talented programs.
To look for trends in student performance and growth in order to analyze our multi-tiered system of support and curricular resources.
To communicate with parents and students about progress and next steps for learning.
To form custom learning paths in online learning systems such as Compass Learning.
To help identify which students may need individual reading improvement plans as required by the Read by Grade Three law.
To help identify which students may need additional supports or interventions.
To analyze summer learning loss and develop and evaluate summer programming to mitigate this loss.
To determine whether students are ON TRACK to being at grade level, being college and career ready, and graduating from high school.
The bottom line is that we use fall data to make all kinds of important decisions, and we cannot be confident in our decisions if the data do not accurately reflect the knowledge and skills students are able to demonstrate. Students need to understand that it is very important that they perform their best every time they test, including in the fall.
To ensure that students perform their best this fall, please be sure to:
Communicate testing dates and times with students and parents ahead of time.
Schedule testing times that are conducive to higher student engagement.
Explain to students how their test scores will be used.
Allow for ample testing time and breaks as necessary.
Monitor students during testing to help refocus and encourage.
Provide students with appropriate accommodations as needed.
Thank you for your help in making sure all students have the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and skills so that we can make appropriate decisions that support learning!
Thank you for all you do!
Lindsay Akers Noakes
Coordinator of Assessment, Evaluation, and the Academically Talented Program
Kalamazoo Public Schools
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