Education Week - February 27, 2019 - 6

A Tidal Wave
In Testing
Has Slowed
To a Trickle
By Catherine Gewertz
The testing revolution sparked by
the common core has all but evaporated in less than a decade, with only
one-third of the states still using the
federally funded assessments designed to measure those standards.
Education Week's fourth survey
of state tests since 2014 shows that
only 16 are still using the PARCC or
Smarter Balanced assessments in
math and English/language arts in
2018-19.
When those tests were being designed in 2010 and 2011, 45 states
reported plans to use them.
But by 2014, a year before the tests
became available, only half the states
were still on board. By 2016, that
number had dropped to 21. And now
it's dwindled to one-third.
To have most states sharing the
same assessments would have
marked an unprecedented shift in
U.S. educational testing: States had
never before banded together in such
large numbers to use one set of academic standards and tests.
It was a grand experiment aimed
at creating tests that better measured learning, and allowed parents
and policymakers to compare student
progress across the states.
But opposition to the length and
cost of the tests led most states to go
back to buying or crafting their own.
Political backlash against perceived
federal involvement in what students
learn was also a factor in that pullback, even though common-core advocates argued that federal funding
of tests did not mean the government
would shape the curriculum. Federal officials aren't allowed to dictate
what students learn.
Advocates argue that keeping
even a dozen states in the sharedtesting game-as is the case with the
Smarter Balanced assessment, for instance-still represents an important
evolution in a shared commitment to
rigorous standards, tests, and comparability.
But the scale of that commitment
on the testing front has dropped dramatically. Many states retained the
underlying common-core standards,
however, although some renamed or
revised them.
Education Week's survey shows little recent change in two other testing
trends. Requiring students to take a
college-admissions exam, or to take a
test to graduate from high school, are
both about as popular in 2019 as they
were in 2017.

What tests does your state
require this school year?
Find a complete interactive
breakdown of results:
www.edweek.org/go/tests

WHAT TESTS DO STATES REQUIRE IN 2018-19?
Education Week has tracked states' testing plans in math and English/language arts since 2014. This year's
survey found a continued, steady erosion in the number of states using the PARCC or Smarter Balanced commoncore-aligned tests: five fewer than in 2017. The number of states requiring students to take college-admissions
tests, or pass an exit exam to graduate, is holding steady.

Which States Use PARCC
or Smarter Balanced?
ONLY ONE-THIRD OF THE STATES
USE THE PARCC OR SMARTER
BALANCED TESTS
* Fifteen states and the District
of Columbia will administer
PARCC or Smarter Balanced
tests in the spring of 2019.
That's five fewer than in 2016
and 2017.
* Thirty-two states use tests they
designed or bought.
* Three states give hybrid tests.
Two mix their own questions
with items from the PARCC/New
Meridian item bank, and one
adds its own questions onto the
full Smarter Balanced test.

Which States Require
Students to Take the
SAT or ACT?

States using PARCC
or Smarter Balanced
(15 + Washington,
D.C.)
States using nonconsortium tests (32)

States that mix PARCC
and Smarter Balanced
questions with their
own (3)
Note: Some states
administer customized
versions of the PARCC exam.

REQUIRING THE ACT OR SAT:
HOLDING STEADY AFTER A RISE
IN POPULARITY.
* Twenty-five states require
students to take the SAT or ACT,
the same number as in 2016
and 2017. That number had
been climbing steadily-from
seven states a decade ago-
as states looked for ways to
encourage students to go to
college.

States that require
students to take the
SAT or ACT (24 +
Washington, D.C.)

Which States Require
Exit Exams?
REQUIRING EXIT EXAMS:
HOLDING STEADY AFTER A
DECLINE
* Thirteen states require
students to pass a test to get
a high school diploma, one
more than in 2017. In some
states, students can use
projects or portfolios to meet
this requirement. Exit exams
used to be more popular: In
2002, more than half the
states required them.

States that require
students to pass a
test to graduate from
high school (13)

SOURCE: Education Week

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Education Week - February 27, 2019

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