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Local schools not sure what to expect from pilot testing program
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Published: November 28, 2008
For fourth and seventh graders across North Carolina, state writing assessments have quadrupled for the 2008-09 school year as part of a pilot testing system recently implemented by the Department of Public Instruction.
"Being a pilot program, we're not really sure yet" what to expect, said Ginger Huffstickler, director of testing and student accountability for the Mooresville Graded School District.
"They are just going to collect the data this year and implement it in the future," she added. "They are trying to get away from writing on one day."
Traditionally, students in grades four, seven and ten received a single-day timed assessment guided by a prompt.
As a result of changes adopted by the State Board of Education in June, fourth and seventh grade students will complete four writing assessments – two on-demand, prompt-guided tests following the same format as the previous examination and two content-specific assessments, which will take several days and examine the entire writing process – during this school year's pilot program.
Tenth grade writing assessments will remain unchanged at this time because of their tie to No Child Left Behind and Adequate Yearly Progress results.
"I don't think there will be any different preparations for the (new) testing to take place," said Huffstickler.
Adding that a "smooth" transition to four tests is expected in the MGSD, she noted that the pilot program will require a "little more work" – teachers, who have been previously trained to grade state assessments, will scores the students' work – but not necessarily more classroom time.
In the MGSD, the new content-specific assessments will likely utilize writing assignments already administered to students. Teachers will choose a topic from any subject area for the entire grade level and conduct the state writing assessments "over multiple days, using writing tools, such as a dictionary and thesaurus, going from the rough draft all the way to the completed product," Huffstickler said.
According to the DPI Web site, "the new writing assessment system encourages instruction to focus on the writing process, not just the preparation for a traditional single-day assessment. It is based upon writing across the curriculum in each content area and involves all educators, not just English/language arts educators."
At Mooresville Middle School, seventh graders have already begun their content-specific testing, said Huffstickler, although the district has not created a strict schedule for the four assessments. Testing dates, however, are determined locally with all scores ready for submission to the state by June 15, 2009.
And despite not specifically knowing why changes were made to the writing assessments, Huffstickler said she doesn't "see them going back to the one prompt one day."
"The state will get the scores and look at the information this summer. I predict there will be some changes, but I don't know what those will be … I can see some tweaking for the next year."
Another change to the writing assessments requires seventh graders to type their responses via a word processor. But, because of the MGSD's Digital Conversion, Huffstickler said the district is "certainly at an advantage" in making that transition.
For more information about the writing assessment pilot, visit www.ncpublicschools.org
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