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Wyoming Could Have Serious Problems Replacing Smarter Balanced Student Assessment
A KOTA TV headline, “Wyoming Drops Out of Common Core Group,” suggests that state officials are moving towards replacing the Common Core. They are not. This week, State Superintendent Jillian Barrow announced the state will terminate its affiliation with the Smarter Balanced testing consortium. But that doesn’t mean the state has walked away from the Common Core.
“Wyoming’s affiliation with SBAC raises red flags for me as we consider a new statewide assessment,” Barrow said in a statement. “Any real or perceived conflict, such as with SBAC, detracts from securing the most appropriate assessment for Wyoming students.”
One of the hallmarks of Smarter Balanced assessments was the ability for teacher and parents to compare how well schools were preparing students relative to their counterparts across the country. Wyoming officials now face the challenge of producing high-quality assessments that achieve that are aligned to the state’s standards and accurately measure student readiness.
An analysis by Achieve this year found most states have significantly narrowed their “honesty gaps” by implementing rigorous education standards and challenging assessments. Wyoming closed discrepancies between state reported proficiency rates and those identified by NAEP by eight percentage points in fourth-grade reading.
To build on that momentum, officials must ensure statewide assessments honestly reflect student preparedness. “By adhering to a loftier standard and adopting next-generation assessments, [states] will set [their] students on a path to learn more and achieve at higher levels than they otherwise would have done,” Mike Petrilli wrote last month about other states considering new assessments.
About the Collaborative for Student Success
At our core, we believe leaders at all levels have a role to play in ensuring success for K-12 students. From ensuring schools and teachers are equipped with the best materials to spotlighting the innovative and bold ways federal recovery dollars are being used to drive needed changes, the Collaborative for Student Success aims to inform and amplify policies making a difference for students and families.
To recover from the most disruptive event in the history of American public schools, states and districts are leveraging unprecedented resources to make sure classrooms are safe for learning, providing students and teachers with the high-quality instructional materials they deserve, and are rethinking how best to measure learning so supports are targeted where they’re needed most.