Schools won’t be held accountable for statewide test results

Schools won’t be held accountable for statewide test results
 
By Kathryn Palmer
Wyoming Tribune Eagle
Via Wyoming News Exchange
 
CHEYENNE — Wyoming school districts will still administer state standardized tests to the best of their ability this school year, but they won’t be held accountable for the results.
The State Board of Education approved the COVID-19-era measure during a virtual meeting Monday.
When schools across the state abruptly shut down in-person learning back in March, they were unable to administer the state test known as WY-TOPP, which must be taken by at least 95% of students in the district.
Prior to the pandemic, results of state tests have provided the Wyoming Department of Education with metrics to hold schools accountable for their performance in areas such as achievement, growth and equity. Based on those indicators, schools are then put into one of four performance categories: exceeding expectations, meeting expectations, partially meeting expectations or not meeting expectations.
However, because of the unprecedented circumstances created by the pandemic, the state decided last spring to enact emergency rules, which granted an exception to the accountability requirements for the 2019-20 school year. As a result, there is no testing data from that year.
Although most schools in Wyoming have reopened for socially distant in-person learning this school year, surges in the number of positive COVID-19 cases could lead to intermittent school shutdowns and potentially affect the percentage of students able to take the test.
That uncertainty led an advisory committee overseen by the state Department of Education to recommended that the board again adopt emergency rules and “assess students to the fullest extent possible, but not make any accountability assessments,” meaning that each district wouldn’t have to test at least 95% of students, as was required before the pandemic.
“When we don’t have a prior-year assessment, the school performance ratings are nowhere near as consistent and reliable. …. Schools should not be held accountable to the requirements for the 2020-21 school year,” Kari Eakins, chief policy officer for department, told the board Monday, noting that equity and growth indicators are most skewed by the skipped year of data.
“We still, of course, would like to assess to the greatest extent possible so we can have that walk back into accountability in a future year, but we won’t need 95% of students to have been assessed to have enough students with a (reliable) prior-year assessment growth.”
Ryan Fuhrman, chairman of the board, asked for clarity on the measure before voting to pass it. “Is this vote for the upcoming WY-TOPP testing in the spring, or is it dealing with the effects of not taking the WY-TOPP last spring?”
“It’s taking care of the effects of both,” Eakins said. “We don’t think we’re going to be able to get to 95% in every school. We have schools that would end up getting low ratings this school year because of their inability to test students.”
The 95% threshold is set by the federal government and not the state, however, so the emergency rules passed Monday will only address any state-level repercussions.
Although the U.S. Department of Education did waive all federal testing requirements last school year, the messaging coming from Washington, D.C., so far indicates that’s far less likely to happen this school year.
“This is just as much of a moving part at the federal level – perhaps even more so – than it is at the state level,” state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jillian Balow said. “I think it’s important, as we work toward making the state and federal accountability systems as close together as possible, for the state to take as many opportunities to lead as possible, so we can take as many flexibilities as are offered and continue to stay engaged in the conversation.”
Balow added that she’d like to see a “fairly assertive path forward” on the issue “because it may or may not affect federal conversations and flexibilities that are offered and applied for.”