Achievement Level Descriptors & College Content-Readiness

1. Achievement Level Descriptors & College Content-Readiness Webinar 1 November 15, 2012

2. Overview • Overview of Achievement Level Descriptors (ALDs) • The ALD-Writing Workshop • Who attended • Achievement Level Descriptors created • Definition of College Content-Readiness • The Draft Achievement Level Descriptors • The Feedback Process

3. Overview of Achievement Level Descriptors

4. What are achievement level descriptors (ALDs)? • Achievement (performance) levels • Aggregate students into groups based on test performance • Achievement level descriptors definethe types of knowledge, skills, and processes expected of ordemonstrated by students in each level of achievement • ALDs have described either what students should be able to do or can do • ALDs inform stakeholders of how to interpret student test scores in relationship to the content standards • ALDs typically are used for standard setting or score reporting

5. What can ALDs become? • ALDs define the intended interpretations of test scores • In the past, they have only informed standard setting and/or score interpretation • In the future, Smarter Balanced will use ALDs for • test development • standard setting • score interpretation

6. Family of ALDs

7. ALDs and the Development Cycle Test Development Standard Setting Score Reporting General to all grade content areas Specific to a single grade content area Policy ALDAdvanced Range ALDAdvanced Threshold ALDJust Advanced Reporting ALDJustAdvanced Policy ALDProficient Range ALDProficient Threshold ALDJust Proficient Reporting ALDJustProficient Policy ALDBasic Range ALDBasic GeneralSpecific

8. Smarter Balanced Achievement Levels • PARCC—Level 4 is college ready • Smarter Balanced – Level 3 is college content ready • Smarter Balanced has four achievement levels • Intended alignment with PARCC & NAEP

9. Questions?

10. The ALD Writing Workshop

11. The ALD Writing Workshop • Oct 1–5, 2012 in Las Vegas, NV • 30 K-12 panelists • All governing states represented • 21 higher education (HE) panelists • All but one governing state represented

12. Workshop Overview

13. Workshop Materials

14. Workshop Feedback • More than 80 percent of panelists agreed that • The process would results in valid ALDs • They supported the rigor of the ALDs

15. College Content Readiness

16. College Content Readiness

17. College Readiness Policy Framework

18. College Readiness Policy Framework

19. Key Issues To be Determined Recommended time limit on recognition of scores Validation Criteria Career Readiness Comparability with PARCC

20. Questions?

21. Draft Achievement Level Descriptors

22. Policy ALDs General descriptors that articulate the goals and rigor for the final performance standards

23. Range ALDS • Define expected knowledge and skills of all students in a particular achievement level • Depict the expected grade-level learning progression by content category • Guide item development

24. Threshold ALDS • Define expectations for students at the threshold of the achievement level • Guide the standard setting workshop

25. ALDs • Grade 3 English language arts/literacy ALDs

26. Review Cycle

27. Review Cycle Open until January 15, 2013 Feedback collected through Survey Monkey Revisions based on feedback in late January/early February Final state review in February State vote in March at Collaboration Conference Future adjustments based on field test results/standard setting

28. Survey Web-based survey A PDF version will be available for you to preview. Complete the web-based survey.

29. Questions? Thank you for your participation!