State Board of Education Votes to Adopt New State Assessment

Last week members of the State Board of Education voted unanimously to adopt a new state assessment to replace the current state tests in math and reading beginning in the 2016-17 school year. The board adopted state administrative rules to put in place the Smarter Balanced Assessments as recommended by an Iowa task force last year. The rules are subject to legislative review before they take effect.

“We need to know that Iowa students are graduating from high school prepared for success, and this is an important step in the process,” said Charles Edwards of Des Moines, president of the State Board of Education. “Years ago, Iowa took the necessary steps to put in place consistent statewide academic standards that outline expectations for what students should know and be able to do. Having a state assessment that is aligned to those standards is critical to understanding whether students are meeting expectations.”

The vote follows many months of board discussion, which culminated in official “notice of intended action” to adopt the administrative rules during the board’s September meeting. This official notice launched a mandatory state administrative rules process that has included publishing the rules in a legislative bulletin, a period of public input, and initial review by the Legislature’s Administrative Rules Review Committee earlier this month. The committee must review the rules once more before they can take effect. A meeting date has not been set.

Iowa law says a new state assessment must be in place by the 2016-17 school year. Students currently take the Iowa Assessments in grades 3-8 and 10-11 in math and reading to meet state and federal accountability laws.

The Smarter Balanced Assessments were developed by a consortium of states, including Iowa, guided by the belief that a high-quality assessment system aligned to rigorous academic standards can improve teaching and can help prepare students for success in college and in the workplace. Adopting the Smarter Balanced Assessments was the centerpiece of a Dec. 2014 report from the Iowa Assessment Task Force, created by lawmakers in 2013 to study the state’s assessment needs and to make a recommendation. The task force represented Iowa teachers, parents, school administrators, state and regional agencies and associations, parents, business leaders and higher education leaders.
  
For more information about the Smarter Balanced Assessments, visit http://www.smarterbalanced.org/.