State Superintendent Janet Barresi has decided to scrap grade-level math assessments for middle school students who take and test in higher-level courses such as algebra I, algebra II and geometry.
“This double testing has long been a requirement of the U.S. Department of Education, but it is unnecessary and not in the best interest of our students,” she said in a news release.
The Oklahoma State Department of Education requested a waiver from the double requirement in November but has yet to receive a response, officials said.
Because the spring testing window begins April 10, Barresi said she felt it was necessary to do away with the requirement immediately.
Currently, students in seventh and eighth grades can take high school-level math courses but also are required to take and score proficient on grade-level math tests.
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For accountability purposes, assessment results for the higher-level math classes will also count for a middle school’s A-F grade.
In the November state Board of Education meeting, Barresi announced that Oklahoma third- to eighth-graders would not be double-tested by taking both full operational tests and field tests.
She told the board only a fraction of children would be given separate “tryout” questions on English and math tests in the spring as the state transitions to Common Core standards.
The tryout questions will be given instead of complete field tests, which have been used previously.
Field tests are given to a sampling of students by testing companies to evaluate questions for future use. They do not count in either a student’s grade or in a school’s state grade.
Barresi said not every child will receive the tryout items. Districts also will see fewer items on the operational tests.
It is up to each district whether to have the sampling of children answer the tryout questions during the same period they take the operational tests or to schedule those separately, she said.
