Education Week - August 7, 2013 - 20

20 EDUCATION WEEK AUGUST 7, 2013 www.edweek.org
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States Ponder Price Tag of Common Tests
About half in PARCC
group facing hikes
By Catherine Gewertz
With the news that PARCC tests
will cost $29.50 per student, all
states in the two federally funded
common-assessment consortia
now have estimates of what the
new tests will cost. And they’re
sorting out how—and in some
cases, whether—to proceed with
the massive test-design projects.
The Partnership for Assessment
of Readiness for College and Careers
released pricing last month
that’s just under the $29.95 median
spending for summative math
and English/language arts tests in
its 19 member states. That means
that nearly half of PARCC states face
paying more for the tests they use
for federal accountability.
The Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium, or SBAC, the
other state group using federal
funds to design tests for the common
standards, released its pricing
in March. At $22.50 for the
“basic” system of summative math
and literacy tests, or $27.30 for a
“complete” system that includes
formative and interim tests, that
group’s prices are higher than
what one-third of its 24 member
states currently pay.
Georgia Drops Out
States at various points in the
cost spectrum reflected on the role
that the new tests’ cost would play
in their decisions about how to
move forward. Within two hours of
PARCC’s announcement on July 22,
Georgia, one of the lowest-spending
states in that consortium, withdrew
from the group, citing cost,
along with technological readiness
and local control over test design,
among its reasons.
The cost of the tests being built
by PARCC and Smarter Balanced are
a topic of intense interest as states
shape their testing plans for 2014-
COST COMPARISONS
PARCC
Summative Only
$29.50
per student
Critics of Standards
Take Aim at Assessments
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
mately allow districts to pick their
own assessments instead of requiring
them to use what will be provided
by Smarter Balanced, said
Mark Tallman, an associate executive
director of the Kansas Association
of School Boards.
“I think there’s a real good chance
the tests could be targeted,” he said.
The common assessments are
intended to allow student performance
to be compared across
several states based on broad and
high-quality standards, specifically
the common core. They are also intended
to provide much better insight
into students’ knowledge than
previous tests under the federal No
Child Left Behind Act.
Without common assessments to
assess students on the standards
and compare states’ performance,
the common core will enter “noman’s
land,” said Jim Stergios, the
executive director of the Bostonbased
Pioneer Institute, which opposes
the new standards and has
been helping state-level political
groups advocate against them.
“People will do whatever the hell
they want,” Mr. Stergios said of
states deciding not to use the new
assessments. “It means, ‘We’re not
doing common core.’ ”
But officials from the testing consortia
say it’s wrong to believe that
support for common assessments is
crumbling.
Despite recent departures from
PARCC, Mitchell D. Chester, the
Massachusetts K-12 commissioner
and the chairman of the consortium’s
governing board, said he
never believed every state that had
joined the consortium would stay.
He sees it as evidence of strength
that 14 states and the District of
Columbia have committed to fieldtesting
PARCC’s assessment in 2014.
“Each state has a very particular
context for its testing program, how
much is being spent, how it’s used,”
he said.
Support for the common standards
themselves isn’t necessarily
wavering in state education departments.
The Center on Education
Policy, based at George Washington
University in the District
of Columbia, reported last month
that deputy state school superintendents
in 37 states said it was
“not likely” their state would drop
out of or limit involvement in the
common core.
But the consortia’s assessments
are a key “linchpin” for the standards,
said Maria Ferguson, the
executive director of the CEP, even
though “there are other products
out there that can fill the gap,” she
noted, referring to testing materials
produced by ACT Inc. and others.
Financial Concerns
Cost factors come in to play at a
time when the common standards
themselves face vocal, grassroots
opposition from conservative activists
in particular.
Georgia announced its with-
drawal from PARCC on July 22,
after a recent uptick in anti-common-core
activity in the state—
and one day after PARCC released
cost estimates showing a $29.95
median cost per student for its
summative math and English/
language arts tests. That’s higher
than nearly half what its members
pay for their current federal
accountability tests.
Georgia schools Superintendent
John Barge, a Republican, voiced
concern about the potential per-student
costs and whether lawmakers
in his state would sign off on significant
spending increases required
to pay for the consortium’s test.
The previous week, on July 17,
Florida Senate President Don
15, when the consortium-made
tests are scheduled to be administered.
Building support for different
tests can be difficult even without
a price increase. But that job is
even tougher when new tests cost
more than those currently in use.
“I’m not going to suggest to you
that it’s an easy sell to the legislature,”
said Deborah Sigman, the
deputy superintendent who oversees
assessment in California,
which belongs to the Smarter Balanced
consortium. “But we think
that assessment should model
high-quality teaching and learning.
To do that, you have to look at
assessing in different ways.
“The irony is, people say they
SMARTER
BALANCED
ASSESSMENT
CONSORTIA*
Summative,
Interim, &
Formative
Summative Only $27.30
$22.50
per student
per student
$9.95
Consortium
Services
+ $17.75
State-Managed
* States can add tests in grades 9, 10, and12.
SOURCES: PARCC; Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium
Gaetz and Speaker of the House
Will Weatherford, both Republicans,
wrote in a letter to thenCommissioner
of Education Tony
Bennett that the state should
drop out of PARCC over concerns
about costs and other reasons. Mr.
Bennett resigned from that post
last week in a controversy involving
grade-changes for a charter
school while he was the Indiana
schools chief. (See related story,
Page 26.)
Costs are likely to be an issue
even in states like California where
the standards themselves enjoy officials’
broad support, said Robert
Rothman, a senior fellow at the
Washington-based Alliance for Excellent
Education and a standards
supporter. California, a member of
the Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium, is projected to see an
increase in per-student assessment
costs, as would about a third of that
consortium’s members.
“If they see a big jump in the testing
budget, that’s going to cause
problems in the legislature, not because
of the tea party,” he said.
Technology a Factor
Georgia and Oklahoma have
also cited concerns about their
technological capacity for new assessment
regimes as a major reason
they have decided not to use
PARCC tests.
Mr. Gaetz and Mr. Weatherford,
the Florida lawmakers, wrote that
they were worried about Florida’s
ability to add enough computers
to satisfy PARCC’s assessments. The
consortium calls for a minimum
student-to-computer ratio of 2:1 for
schools with three tested grades.
And in a survey last year of technology
in Florida schools, the state
education department estimated
that 1,616 schools would need new
“high-density wireless” systems,
and 67 districts would have to get
upgraded broadband to prepare for
PARCC.
Even in California, a Smarter
Balanced member that has earmarked
$1.25 billion over the
next two years specifically for districts
to implement the common
core, the targeted money is also
intended for textbooks and professional
development, not just new
K-12 technology.
New hardware and wireless capabilities
are not the only issues.
Brandt Redd, the chief technology
officer of Smarter Balanced, said
the consortium is trying to help
school systems figure out what to
do when Microsoft’s support for its
XP operating system, used by a vast
number of districts, ends in April.
Still, Mr. Redd said, “We have designed
the assessments not to be
terribly demanding on devices.” He
noted that they will require only a
10-inch screen, for example.
Both Mr. Chester and Mr. Redd
highlighted the federal government’s
role in providing more financial
support for school technology in
the near future. The Federal Communications
Commission released
a plan late last month to overhaul
the E-rate program that K-12 advocates
hope will improve connectivity
and cost-effective purchasing,
following President Barack
Obama’s ConnectED Initiative
$6.20
Consortium
Services
+ $16.30
State-Managed
unveiled in June. (See related story,
Page 14.)
Both also acknowledged, how-
ever, that in 2014-15, not all states
will have yet reached their technological
goals for common-core tests.
Comparability Issue
As of late last week, PARCC officially
had 18 member states and
the District of Columbia, down
from 26 states when it won the
federal money. Smarter Balanced
has 24 states. (Until recently, some
states belonged to both.)
At some point, a decline in membership
could raise concerns about
the ability to look at performance
across the board for states and
districts, although opinions about
the value of this comparability,
given the use of the National Assessment
of Educational Progress,
are divided.
Mr. Rothman said that while
comparing nonconsortia and consortia
tests would be “very difficult,”
comparison hasn’t mattered
much to the four states that have
used the New England Common
Assessment Program, or NECAP,
for example.
Another concern is whether there
will be large differences between
the consortia’ tests and commoncore
tests from other organizations,
such as ACT’s (which Alabama plans
to use), in terms of students’ learning,
their readiness for college and
career, and teachers.
As an analogy, Mr. Bennett, before
resigning his post, argued that
while the SAT and ACT are different
tests, college-admissions officers
feel comfortable using both. He is
an ardent common-core supporter.
But Daniel Koretz, a professor at
the Harvard Graduation School of
Education, stressed that teachers
whose students are facing different
tests will approach the common
core in correspondingly different
ways.
“Consortium tests don’t just
measure what students know. ...
They’re designed to push instruction
in a certain way,” he said.
want a robust system that gets
to those deep learnings, but, let’s
make sure it doesn’t take as much
time and that it doesn’t cost more
money. Those things are incongruent.
Those performance items require
more resources and a greater
investment.”
California faces a steeper assessment
bill if it uses Smarter Balanced
tests, Ms. Sigman said. The
state’s lower legislative chamber
has passed a measure embracing
those tests, but the Senate has yet
to act on it.
Douglas J. McRae, a retired testcompany
executive who monitors
California’s assessment movements
closely, believes the SBAC
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