Okla. Admin. Code § 210:10-13-1.1

Current through Vol. 41, No. 19, June 17, 2024

Section 210:10-13-1.1 - Assessment system

(a)Definitions. The following terms, when used in this Section, shall have the following meaning, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise:

(1)"College and career readiness (CCR)" means that students graduate from high school prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary opportunities, whether college or career.

(2)"Criterion-referenced" means an assessment that compares a student's performance to a predetermined standard.

(3)"Cut score" means, for each assessment, the score which the Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability has established as the minimum score required to meet the state's performance target for students taking the assessment.

(4)"Lexile" means a score used within the Lexile framework for reading, which represents either the difficulty of a text or a student's reading ability level.

(5)"Norm-referenced" means an assessment that compares a student's performance to the performance of others who take the assessment.

(6)"Quantile" means a score used within the Quantile framework for mathematics that represents a forecast of, or a measure of, a student's ability to successfully work with certain math skills and concepts.

(7)"Scale score" means a raw score that has been adapted through a customized set of mathematical procedures (e.g., scaling and equating) to account for differences in difficulty across multiple forms, and to enable the score to represent the same level of difficulty from one year to the next.

(8)"Summative assessment" means an assessment conducted at the end of a defined period, such as an academic term or school year, which evaluates student performance against a set of learning targets for the instructional period.

(b)Requirements for a system of assessments. House Bill 3218 (2016) directed the State Board of Education to study and develop recommendations for a statewide system of student assessments, which were then submitted to the Oklahoma Legislature for review. The full report of recommendations is available on the State Department of Education website. The assessment system recommended by the State Board of Education and subsequently approved by the Legislature was developed subject to the following requirements under 70 O.S. § 1210.508:

(1) Alignment with the Oklahoma Academic Standards;

(2) Comparability of Oklahoma student performance with the performance of students in other states;

(3) Capability of yielding both norm-referenced and criterion-referenced scores;

(4) A track record of statistical reliability and accuracy; and

(5) For assessments administered in high school, a measure of future academic performance.

(c)Goals. Pursuant to the requirements to study and develop recommendations for a system of assessments, the State Department of Education convened an Assessment and Accountability Task Force that included educators, parents, tribal leaders, lawmakers, and business and community leaders from across the state. In consultation with experts in the fields of educational assessment and accountability, the Task Force identified the following as primary goals for Oklahoma's student assessment system:

(1) Provide instructionally useful information to teachers and students, with appropriate detail and timely reporting;

(2) Provide clear and accurate information to parents and students regarding achievement and progress toward college and career readiness (CCR);

(3) Provide meaningful information to support evaluation and enhancement of curriculum and programs; and

(4) Provide information to appropriately support federal and state accountability decisions.

(d)Summative assessments for grades three (3) through eight (8). The assessment system adopted by the State Board of Education and approved by the Legislature includes the following components for student assessment in grades three (3) through eight (8):

(1)Content alignment and timing.

(A) The Oklahoma Academic Standards will be maintained as the focus of state assessments, and assessments will continue to be administered at the ends of grades three (3) through grade eight (8).

(B) An adequate assessment of writing will be included to support coverage of the Oklahoma English Language Arts (ELA) standards.

(2)Intended purpose and use.

(A) Assessments will support the calculation of growth for students in at least grades four (4) through eight (8).

(B) Assessments will demonstrate sufficient technical quality to support the intended purposes and current uses of student accountability, for example grade three (3) promotion based on reading assessment and driver license eligibility based on grade eight (8) English Language Arts (ELA) assessment.

(3)Score interpretation.

(A) Assessments will provide a measure of performance indicative of whether students appear to be on track to college and career readiness (CCR).

(B) Assessments will support criterion-referenced interpretations which measure student performance against the Oklahoma Academic Standards, and report individual claims including but not limited to scale score, Lexile, Quantile, content cluster, and growth performance.

(C) Assessments will support norm-referenced information to help contextualize the performance of students statewide using a feature such as intra-state percentiles.

(4)Reporting and state comparability.

(A) Assessments will support aggregate (group) reporting on claims including but not limited to scale score, Lexile, Quantile, content cluster, and growth performance.

(B) The assessment system will utilize the existing National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data to establish statewide comparisons at grades four (4) and eight (8). NAEP data will also be used during standard-setting activities to ensure the College and Career Readiness (CCR) cut score is set using national and other state data.

(e)Summative assessments for high school. The assessment system adopted by the State Board of Education and approved by the Legislature includes the following components for student assessment in high school:

(1)Content alignment and timing. A commercial college-readiness assessment (e.g., SAT, ACT) will be used in lieu of state-developed high school assessments in grades nine (9) or ten (10), with alignment to standards and other peer review requirements being a consideration.

(2)Intended purpose and use.

(A) The assessment will demonstrate sufficient technical quality to support the need for multiple and differing uses of assessment results.

(B) The possibility of linking college-readiness scores to information of value for students and educators will be explored (e.g., readiness for postsecondary opportunities, remediation risk).

(C) A focus on rigorous expectations of college and career readiness will be maintained.

(D) The assessment will ensure that all students in Oklahoma can be provided with a reliable, valid, and fair score regardless of the accommodations provided or the amount of time needed for a student to take the test, and will further ensure that scores reflecting college and career readiness can be provided to the accepting institution or employer of each student.

(3)Score interpretation.

(A) The assessment will support criterion-referenced interpretations of student performance against the Oklahoma Academic Standards, and report individual claims appropriate for high school students.

(B) The assessment will provide evidence to support claims of college and career readiness (CCR). These claims should be supported using theoretically related data in standard-setting activities (e.g., measures of college readiness and other nationally available data), and validated empirically using available postsecondary data linking to performance on the college-readiness assessment.

(C) The assessment will provide norm-referenced information to help contextualize the performance of students statewide using a feature such as intra-state percentiles.

(4)Reporting and state comparability.

(A) The assessment system will support aggregate (group) reporting on claims at appropriate levels of categorization for high school assessments (e.g., grade, subgroup, teacher, building/district administrator, state).

(B) The assessment system will support the ability to provide norm-referenced information based on other states that administer the same college-ready assessments, as long as unreasonable administration constraints do not inhibit those comparisons.

Okla. Admin. Code § 210:10-13-1.1

Adopted by Oklahoma Register, Volume 34, Issue 24, September 1, 2017, eff. 9/11/2017