LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Recently, we asked in a survey what issues were most important to you as we approach election season.
The top answer was education— one area where the state of Arkansas could soon see some big changes when it comes to the way student performance is measured.
“We've been engaged in a process for at least the last year and a half,” said Jacob Oliva, the Secretary of the Arkansas Department of Education (ADE). “Designing a new assessment system to be that state tool."
This past spring, that system, known as the Arkansas Teaching, Learning, and Assessment System (ATLAS) replaced the ACT Aspire as Arkansas’s standardized test of choice.
On Wednesday, Oliva told the state Board of Education that some teachers have been confused about how to improve student performance on these exams.
"It was a mystery. This isn't here to catch people or to fool people. We want a clear, aligned system that says this is what we want students to know and learn," he described. "This is how we're going to support you in achieving that goal."
That’s the purpose of a new system that Oliva and the ADE are hoping to roll out— a scoring system for students that rates their performance on levels ranging from one to four with four being the best.
The system was designed with input from over 200 educators after looking at last year’s results, and would initially be for students in third grade through high school.
“If you're at a level one that means you have a limited understanding of what is being expected of you to know and learn,” Oliva said. “Those are students [who] are going to need intervention. They're going to need support."
Level two students will have a basic understanding, level three students will demonstrate a proficient understanding, and level four students will have shown an advanced understanding.
Students who are at levels one and two may need additional support before they can access content taught in the next grade/course.
Based on last year’s results, the standards will be pretty tough— over 65% of students would’ve been in levels one or two for math, and the numbers aren’t much different for english/language arts and science.
In fact, more than half of all geometry students who took the test would’ve been level one, meaning they would require “significant support/scaffolding and intervention” before moving on to the next grade/course.
Oliva said as the system is implemented, the standards should be tough.
“We wanted to maintain that high expectation,” Oliva said. “And make sure that when we look at some of those national standards that we would see some level of alignment."
However, the new system isn’t finalized yet— the Board of Education will vote on the new standards in their meeting at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday.