Statewide tests and lessons for math and language arts are pretty solid in Utah, but they need some tweaking, especially as the state looks to boost school accountability.
That's the word from WestEd, a regional education laboratory specializing in testing. The San Francisco-based agency evaluated Utah's core curriculum in those two subjects at lawmakers' behest.The report is intended to help put in place statewide core curriculum tests, whose results will be publicized under a brand new law.
The independent review also will be of interest to the state Task Force on Learning Standards and Accountability in Public Education, which is drafting a bill to boost accountability by reporting test scores on the core curriculum and developing a writing test for sixth- and ninth-graders. Educators say the curriculum and state standards must be solid before an accountability model can work.
But really, the upshot is nothing state officials haven't known and plan to work on, officials say.
"I think we are on firm ground," said Barbara Lawrence, state coordinator of evaluation and assessment.
WestEd looked at Utah's reading/language arts and math core curricula, which map what students should be learning at each grade level, by comparing it to other states' models and national standards.
Utah's elementary reading core curriculum is 3 years old but brand new for junior high and high school kids. The math core is based on standards from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
The reading core is cohesive but could be reorganized for easier understanding and made more specific in what elementary students should be learning in every grade, said Srijati Ananda, WestEd's co-director of assessment and standards development services.
Math was a little stronger and praised for laying a foundation for higher math in early grades. But it also could be narrowed in scope for upper grades, who are expected to learn more than what a teacher can reasonably cover in a year.
Also, the core has no benchmarks on how well students are expected to perform, the report states.
The State Office of Education is working with WestEd on setting performance standards. It also has been asked to set a scoring benchmark for tests in the proposed accountability model.
Core curriculum tests are OK -- for now, Ananda said. But if they're going to be used down the road to hold teachers accountable for what children are learning, they ought to be re-examined.
Lawrence agrees. She says the tests will have to undergo thorough reviews, to see if they put minorities or other groups at a disadvantage, for instance, to provide a larger picture. The tests now are used as a teacher's tool to fix instruction and see how much students know.
Bonnie Morgan, state curriculum director, also says the state wants to tweak its core curriculum under WestEd's recommendations.
But neither will come free. Curriculum changes could cost around $200,000. While developing and maintaining the multiple-choice core curriculum test is expected to cost more than $1.2 million a year, short-answer exams, which WestEd recommends and the task force wants to see, would cost $5.2 million a year, the State Office of Education has reported.
WestEd's report was presented Monday to the Task Force on Learning Standards and Accountability in Public Education and will be presented to lawmakers later this week.