Back to school

Rachel Wise

Rachel Wise, District 3, Nebraska State Board of Education (August, 2013)

Back to School!

School shopping, school supplies, new teachers, new friends, getting to bed early these are the memories of August for students and teachers! This time of year is also a busy time for local school boards and for the State Board of Education.  A packed agenda welcomed the State Board on August 8^th and 9^th.

By the time you read this article, the 2012-2013 Nebraska Statewide Assessments (NeSA) reading, math and science scores will have been released to the public. NeSA is the assessment or testing system developed to measure student progress on Nebraska standards. While these test scores provide valuable information for schools, teachers and parents, it is important to remember these tests are one-time, drop-in measures of student learning that, in my opinion, should not be used alone to judge the performance of our students, teachers or schools. Are they measures that can be of value? Absolutely! However, we must look at multiple factors as they relate to student performance, teacher performance and school success.

In late September, the Nebraska Department of Education will release the State of the Schools Report (SOSR), which will provide a great deal more information about our schools and include the Nebraska Performance and Accountability System (NePAS). NePAS will provide information on how school districts perform in reading, math, writing and science. Information on growth and improvement of districts will be provided for reading and math. This year the SOSR will provide more detailed information because of a change in the way we report performance for small groups of students. While the new rules or “masking” rules are complex, in general the department will display only percentages for student performance and those percentages will be rounded to continue to protect confidential information about individual students. Data for small student groups ― groups with fewer than 10 students ― will continue to be masked but percentages will be displayed when five or more students perform at a specific performance level such as below, meeting or exceeding the standards. This new reporting strategy will be especially useful for smaller schools when graduation rates are reported in November.

Earlier in the year, I provided some background information about Nebraska Standards, the Common Core and an alignment study that was being conducted by the McREL organization. The completed language arts alignment study was a focal point of discussion at the August Board meeting. A math standards alignment study is being finalized. Those results will be shared with the Board next month. The report for the language arts alignment is available on the Nebraska Department of Education’s website and contains some excellent information. In quick summary, there is a high correlation between Nebraska’s language arts academic standards and the Common Core language arts standards. The report showed that 3 percent of the Nebraska language arts standards were more rigorous than the Common Core language arts standards and 3 percent of the Common Core language arts standards were more rigorous than Nebraska language arts standards. I will touch on the alignment study of language arts and math standards in more detail next month. The State Board approved a timeline and process for validating Nebraska academic standards and to ensure our high school seniors are college and career ready when they graduate. This fall, representatives from postsecondary education and Nebraska language arts standards writing teams will begin that process. The review process will include findings from the McREL alignment study and involvepostsecondary education representatives, teachers, administrators and the public

Finally, the State Board is moving forward with its search for a new Commissioner of Education. At the August meeting, the State Board approved a position profile that will serve as the foundation for recruiting and hiring the next Commissioner.

For more information on the release of NeSA scores, the process for ensuring Nebraska standards are college and career ready and the search for a new commissioner, please search the Nebraska Department of Education website at www.education.ne.gov .

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