WHY NEW ASSESSMENTS?
Teachers and principals talk a lot about
assessments, which are used to measure
students’ academic achievement. This
document highlights the end-of-year
summative assessments, which judge (1)
student progress toward mastering state
standards and (2) program and school
effectiveness. For other assessments used,
see box at right.
New summative assessments will address
longstanding concerns that parents,
educators, and employers have had about
current state assessments—namely that
they measure ability to memorize facts,
rather than the skills to think critically and
apply knowledge.
Iowa is on track to put in place the Smarter Balanced assessments in the 2017-18 school year.
The Smarter Balanced assessments were developed by a consortium of states, including
Iowa, guided by the belief that a high-quality assessment system aligned to rigorous academic
standards will improve teaching and will help prepare students for success.
In the 2016-17 school year, students will take the current Iowa Assessments in grades 3-8 and
10-11 in math and reading.
PARENTS’ GUIDE TO NEW
ASSESSMENTS IN IOWA
Types of assessments
Classroom-based: Individual tests given by teachers
as needed throughout the year to assess knowledge
and skills in specific areas
Interim: The same test repeated at set intervals to
measure student growth over time
Summative: End-of-year assessments administered by
the state to measure student performance against a
common set of standards
This document addresses summative assessments.
THIS GUIDE INCLUDES:
■ Overview of the Smarter Balanced assessments, which measure student proficiency against more
rigorous standards
■ Overview of accountability for students, teachers and schools
■ Additional resources for parents
The new assessments for English and mathematics will enable educators to deepen their understanding
of student progress from grade to grade—and, just as importantly, identify any gaps in progress so they
can address them well before students enter college or the workforce. More than 4,700 educators
have contributed to the development and continuous improvement of Smarter Balanced assessments
as a resource to improve teaching and learning.
New English-language arts assessments:
■ Ask students to read more complex fiction and non-fiction texts and use evidence from these texts to
answer questions, make inferences and present persuasive arguments
■ Emphasize literacy across all subjects, not just English
■ Test writing at every grade level
New mathematics assessments:
■ Go beyond multiple-choice questions and present students with multi-step problems, conceptual
questions and real-world applications
■ Ask students to not only get answers correct, but also explain how they arrived at those answers
■ Cover fewer topics in greater depth, focusing on the most critical areas
What is different about the new summative assessments?
More than 200 colleges and universities across the country have agreed to use students’ scores from the Smarter
Balanced high school test as part of college placement. This means that high school students who take the test in
11th grade have an opportunity to jumpstart their college coursework and bypass remedial courses.
For more information, and a list of participating colleges, visit: smarterbalanced.org/higher-education.
■ Scores provide students, parents and teachers with insight into college and career
readiness early enough to address issues and provide extra support where needed.
■ Iowa has transitioned to what are called “computer adaptive assessments,” which
replace pencil-and-paper tests and can adjust the difficulty of questions based on student
responses. A student who answers correctly will receive a more challenging item, while an
incorrect answer generates an easier question. This method provides students with a more
engaging test experience, is more time-efficient
and—especially for low- or high-achieving
students—produces more accurate results
than traditional methods.
■ The new assessments are designed to provide
accurate measures of achievement and growth
for all students, including those with disabilities
and English language learners—allowing
these students to perform to their potential.
The goal is to make the assessments more
accessible and to produce results that are valid
for all students. The intention is not to give any
student an advantage over other students. For
students with disabilities, the online assessments will address visual, auditory and physical
access barriers. These students will be able to take a test individualized to meet their
needs at the same time as other students in their class. Tools have also been developed to
help English language learners demonstrate their knowledge, regardless of their level of
proficiency in English.
College Content-Readiness Defined
Students who perform at the College Content-Ready level in English-language arts/
literacy demonstrate reading, writing, listening and research skills necessary for
introductory courses in a variety of disciplines. They also demonstrate subject-area
knowledge and skills associated with readiness for entry-level, transferable, credit-
bearing English and composition courses.
Students who perform at the college content-ready level in mathematics demonstrate
foundational mathematical knowledge and quantitative reasoning skills necessary for
introductory courses in a variety of disciplines. They also demonstrate subject-area
knowledge and skills associated with readiness for entry-level, transferable, credit-
bearing mathematics and statistics courses.
PTA.org
Benefits of New
Assessments:
NOTE: While taking advantage
of technology, new assessments
are designed to work with the
computing resources in schools
today. The assessments work fine
on very old operating systems
and require minimal processors
and memory. However, states that
have not yet made the transition
to online testing are offered a
paper-and-pencil option for the
first three years.
The bed of a truck is stacked with boxes of paper. The boxes are stacked 5 boxes deep by 4 boxes high by 4 boxes
across, as shown in the picture.
When the driver is in the empty truck, the mass is 2948.35 kilograms.
The mass of 1 box of paper is 22.5 kilograms.
The driver delivers some of the boxes of paper at his first stop.
The truck has to drive over a bridge on the way to the next stop.
Trucks with a mass greater than 4700 kilograms are not allowed to
drive over the bridge.
Enter the minimum number of boxes of paper the driver must deliver at the first stop to be allowed to drive over
the bridge.
KEY
1 box
of paper
X
123
456
789
0
.
The following questions are representative of those found on the new assessments.
For more examples visit: smarterbalanced.org/sample-items-and-performance-tasks
Sample Questions
FIFTH-GRADE MATHEMATICS
SIXTH-GRADE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTS
A student is writing a report about sleep. Read both sources and the directions that follow.
SAMPLE QUESTION
Source 1: “During Sleep” by Dr. Howard Dell
If you are like some people, you may think that sleep is a process during which the body and brain shut off, but
this is not the case. The body goes through a series of stages during sleep in which body and brain activity
change. Most of these changes are neither noticed nor remembered. However, sleep does usually follow a
pattern. Muscle activity and breathing slow in the initial stages of sleep. The body’s temperature also
decreases. Sometimes during sleep, the heart can begin to beat more quickly, blood pressure can rise, and
many muscles experience small movements. These changes often happen during dreams.
Source 2: What Happens While You Sleep
Stage 1 Light Sleep
The muscles relax, eye movement slows and thoughts begin to
fade. A person may be easily awakened.
Stage 2 Light Sleep Eye movement stops, and a person can experience brief dreams.
Body temperature begins dropping and heart rate slows.
Stage 3 Moderate-Deep Sleep The body temperature lowers, and a person is difficult to awaken.
Stage 4 Deep Sleep The brain uses less energy. The body temperature lowers more
than in moderate-deep sleep. A person may sleepwalk.
REM Sleep (REM = rapid eye movement) Most dreams occur during this stage. The brain uses energy as
eyes move quickly, even though the eyelids are closed. Heart
rate and blood pressure increase, but many of the large body
muscles are inactive.
The student took notes about information in the sources. Select two notes that correctly paraphrase, or restate,
information from both sources.
We dream several times each night.
People can be easily awakened from sleep.
We do not remember what happens during sleep.
People can sleepwalk during a stage of deep sleep.
Our bodies and brains continue to work during sleep.
During some stages of sleep, our bodies decrease in activity.
SLEEP STAGE DESCRIPTION
ELEVENTH-GRADE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ARTS
A student is writing a report on a science project for astronomy class about the planet Jupiter. The student
wants to revise the draft to have a better conclusion. Read the draft of the report and complete the task that
follows.
Orbiting the sun at an average distance of 500 million miles, Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. To
gain an understanding of truly how massive Jupiter is, we can compare it to the very planet we inhabit: Earth.
With a mass of 5.97219 x 1024 kg, Earth is approximately 318 times less massive than Jupiter, which also has a
volume equivalent to 1,321 Earths.
In fact, Jupiter is so large that its mass is more than twice that of all the other planets in our solar system
combined. Even from 400 million miles away, the planet is large enough to be seen in the night sky and is
bright enough to cast a shadow on Earth.
Moreover, the famous red spot we have seen in countless satellite images and artist depictions is, at its
widest, around 3 times wider than our planet. Meanwhile, one of Jupiter’s 67 moons, Ganymede, has a
diameter 8% larger than that of the planet Mercury.
In 2013, astronomers discovered a new planet, HD 106906b, which was estimated to have a mass 11 times greater
than that of Jupiter.
After Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun. Indeed, the larger planets – Jupiter,
Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune – are the four most distant.
It is partially because of Jupiter’s enormous size that the Earth is not frequently bombarded by large meteorites.
Meteors of this kind are often diverted away from Earth’s trajectory to Jupiter’s substantial gravitational field. In
this regard, Jupiter is Earth’s protector.
In 1994, a large comet broke apart and collided with Jupiter in what was the first direct observation of two Solar
System objects colliding. The impact left a scar that remained visible for several months afterward.
Choose the conclusion that best explains the significance of the informational text.
PTA.org
What Parents Can Expect
The Smarter Balanced assessments are designed to measure the new, more rigorous
expectations of the state standards. Because the tests measure complex skills, which are
different from previous state tests, scores on the Smarter Balanced test will look lower. But
students aren’t doing worse—it’s just that the bar is higher.
As students and teachers gain the skills and knowledge needed to meet the new higher
standards, performance will also improve. In other states where more rigorous tests have
been implemented, students improved performance after the first year.
SCORE REPORTS
The score report gives you a snapshot of how your
child is progressing and shows where he or she
excels or needs more support. This information,
along with grades, teacher feedback and scores on
other tests, will help give a more complete picture of
how well your child is performing academically. The
new score reports describing students’ results on
the new tests will be very different from what we’ve
seen in the past. Scores will be different because
the English-language arts and math tests are based
on a different set of academic standards. While
no single test tells us everything we need to know
about how a student is performing in school, these
test scores along with information about students’
work in the classroom give you the information you
need to know about how your child is progressing.
Here is what you can expect to learn from the
report:
■ Your student’s overall score in the subject area
■ What this overall score means
■ Your student’s strengths and areas for
improvement in certain topics in each subject
area
■ How well your student performed compared to
other students in the school, district, state and
other states
Understanding Smarter Balanced
Assessment Score Card
Scale scores are the basic units of reporting.
These scores, which fall along a continuous
vertical scale (from approximately 2,000 to
3,000) that increases across grade levels,
can be used to illustrate students’ current
level of achievement and their growth over
time in a relatively fine-grained fashion.
When aggregated, these scores can also
describe school- or district-level changes in
performance on the tests and can measure
gaps in achievement among different groups
of students.
Achievement level descriptors (ALDs) for
English-language arts/Literacy (ELA/Literacy)
and mathematics are aligned with the Iowa
Core Standards and the Smarter Balanced
assessment claims. The purpose of these
descriptors is to specify, in content terms, the
knowledge and skills that students display
at four levels of achievement (i.e., Level 1,
Level 2, Level 3 and Level 4), which in some
contexts may also be described qualitatively in
terms such as “novice, developing, proficient,
advanced” or others.
State score reports may differ depending on the type of assessment a state utilizes and also whether or not it chooses to customize
the report. States will report scores in several ways, which can serve different purposes for their stakeholders.
How are students held accountable?
Student accountability is determined at the local level. However, in the immediate future, even
if a student does not meet proficiency levels, there should be no negative consequences such
as holding him or her back a year. Instead, parents can work with the school to develop an
improvement plan tailored to the specific student’s needs.
How will schools support students during the
transition?
Schools have created a variety of models to assist students who are struggling with the
standards. Remediation and summer courses, in-class adjustments based on ongoing in-class
assessment results and pull-out tutoring are just a few support strategies.
How are teachers and principals held accountable?
Teachers and principals are evaluated by systems developed at the local level. However, student
test data is not a required measure of accountability.
How are schools held accountable?
Schools report student data through the State Report Card and the Annual Condition of Education
Report. The State Report Card shares information about student and school progress on
indicators of achievement. The Annual Condition of Education reports on trends in Iowa schools.
Parents are their child’s best advocates. As a parent and your child’s first teacher
you should be informed of the assessment and accountability system that is in
place in your child’s school. Parents and families must be at the table with school
leaders and school districts to ensure that testing is implemented well and with
enough resources to ensure success.
PTA.org
Also, be sure to speak with your local school administrators! Ask them to host a parent night in the
spring to explain the tests and in the fall to explain test results.
Below is the list of policies and practices that National PTA supports. Check with the Department of
Education to determine if Iowa’s policies and practices are aligned.
■ How many assessments will my child take this school year and where can I access/view the
assessment calendar?
■ What will happen if my child does not meet proficiency on the new assessments?
■ How will the results of tests be used to support my child’s learning?
■ What can I do, as a parent, to help my child do his or her best?
■ How will school evaluations be affected based on results of the new assessments?
■ National PTA believes that valid assessment does not consist of only a single test score, and that at no
time should a single test be considered the sole determinant of a student’s academic or work future.
■ National PTA supports nationally agreed upon voluntary standards if they are derived by consensus at
the state and local levels. Parents must be involved in this process.
■ National PTA believes that assessments provide valuable information to parents, teachers and school
leaders about the growth and achievement of their students. Furthermore, having annual data on
the performance of students can help inform teaching and learning as well as identify achievement
gaps among groups of students within a school and among school districts. National PTA believes
assessments are essential to ensure that all students receive a high-quality education.
Take Action
Iowa should include parents and teachers in thoughtful conversations based on trust, collaboration
and respect. For additional details about the assessment and accountability system, please call Iowa
Department of Education, (515) 281-5294. Here are some questions you might want to ask:
Preparing and Supporting Your Child
■ Review the testing calendar and work with
your child’s school to ensure there will be
regular and clear communications from the
school on the assessments, the results and
how they are used.
■ Discuss the new tests with your children. Make
sure they feel comfortable and understand why
they are taking a test.
■ With older children, explain that the new
assessments were created to make sure they
are on track to succeed after graduation and to
identify any issues early enough to give them
more support.
■ Explain to your child that the tests will initially be
more challenging. Tell your child you have high
expectations and that you and the teachers are
there to help every step of the way.
■ Review test results with your child and his or
her teacher.
■ Make sure your child has a comfortable place
for studying and is prepared mentally and
physically for a test.
Staying informed and involved
■ Become familiar with Iowa’s standards and the transition to Smarter Balanced by visiting:
iowacore.gov/content/smarter-balanced-assessments
■ To see samples of new test questions and how the assessments were developed, visit:
smarterbalanced.org/practice-test
■ Read all comments written by the teacher. Ask teachers to explain anything that is unclear and
discuss how you can best work together to address areas of improvement for your child.
■ Monitor your child’s progress and regularly communicate with your child’s teachers. If your child
needs extra help or wants to learn more about a subject, work with his or her teacher to identify
opportunities for tutoring, after-school clubs or other resources.
■ Tests are not perfect measures of what a child can do—there are many other factors that might
influence a test score. For example, a child can be affected by the way he or she is feeling on
test day or the particular classroom setting.
■ Meet with your child’s teacher as often as possible to discuss his or her progress. Ask for
activities to do at home to help prepare for tests and improve your child’s proficiency.
Additional resources
■ For more information on the Smarter Balanced consortium, of which Iowa is a member, visit:
smarterbalanced.org
© Copyright 2016 National PTA. All rights reserved.
