MEAP Test Replaced by SMARTER BALANCED ASSESSMENT Exam (Update)

State education officials: Stick with MEAP replacement exam for now

Contracts are in place; test is to debut in 2014-15

By Lori Higgins Detroit Free Press Education Writer

   Michigan Department of Education officials say the state should for now stick with the decision the department made several years ago to introduce the Smarter Balanced Assessment as the state’s new exam — given that contracts already are in place and the new exam is expected to debut during the 2014-15 school year.

   But the recommendation isn’t a slam dunk for the Smarter Balanced test. MDE officials said the contracts for the exam expire in 2016, and they recommend that beginning next year, the state go through the formal process of entertaining proposals for other exams.

   The recommendations are part of a report mandated by the Legislature — via a resolution lawmakers approved in late October that allowed the MDE to move forward with implementation of the often controversial Common Core State Standards, a set of standards adopted by Michigan and 44 other states that spell out what students should know in order to be college and career ready.

   MDE released the 44-page report Monday.

   The resolution required MDE to make a recommendation on an exam that would be used to test students based on the common core standards and provide data to assist in evaluating teachers.

   The requirement was meant to address some lawmakers’ misgivings about the Smarter Balanced exam, which will replace the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) exam. The state gave the last MEAP exam in the fall. The Smarter Balanced exam is expected to debut in the spring of 2015.

   Michigan is one of more than 20 states that in recent years have opted to switch to the Smarter Balanced exam, which assesses the Common Core standards.

   Ari Adler, spokesman for House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall, said a legislative hearing will be held on the report, likely in January. The intent, he said, is for the Legislature to make “some sort of decision” about what will become Michigan’s new test.

   “The idea was to see what was out there and to have some time to review this,” Adler said.

   But the Legislature only gave the department a little more than a month to complete the comprehensive report. MDE sent a survey to 185 vendors. Of those, 12 companies submitted replies.

   “Responding to the extensive survey in two weeks was undoubtedly a challenging task for service providers, as the questions were detailed and covered a wide range of topics,” the report said.

   The Smarter Balanced exam met most of the criteria MDE looked at, such as its alignment to the common core standards and inclusion of enough questions that assess critical thinking skills. Other tests that did well in the analysis are produced by CTB/ McGraw-Hill and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.

   In the report, the MDE officials said that if the state chose an exam other than Smarter Balanced, the amount of time involved would mean the state wouldn’t have an exam ready for the 2014-15 school year, and it could impact having an exam ready for the 2015-16 school year. That would violate federal education law, they said.

   Contact Lori Higgins: 313-222-6651or lhiggins@freepress.com  . Follow her on Twitter @LoriAHiggins.

See Full Report Here: 
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/Common_Core_Assessment_Option_Report_441322_7.pdf