Save Money, Gain Time, Dump SBAC!
Last week the Oregon Legislature’s Joint Committee on Student Success unveiled its plan to increase funding and improve public education. Oregon Save Our Schools would like to suggest a way that the legislature could save a little money and improve education: assess Oregon’s assessment system.
The most egregious problem with the state assessment system is the Smarter Balanced Assessment (also known as SBAC, coming out of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium). This is the assessment that students in grades 3 through 8 and grade 11 currently take to fulfill the federal requirement for annual testing. SBAC is a tremendous drain on time and resources if the vast majority of Oregon’s educators are to be believed.
While there is a federal requirement for annual testing in those grades, the federal government does not require a specific assessment. High school students and families have opted out of SBAC to the extent that the state is considering many other options for the federally required grade 11 assessment but elementary students will still be subjected to the months long annual slog through the Smarter Balanced Assessment if our legislators don’t act to change that.
SBAC consists of two tests for English Language Arts (ELA) and two for Math. It takes an average of 8 hours to complete the four CONTINUE READING: Oregon Save Our Schools: Save Money, Gain Time, Dump SBAC!
