SBA

Here is some important news about this year’s statewide assessments for English language arts and mathematics.  Oregon adopted national standards called the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to elevate academic expectations for our students in grades K-12.  With the CCSS, Oregon students are now gaining important critical-thinking, problem solving, and effective communication skills, and we, as educators, now have a template that clearly identifies what students should know by the end of each grade and what to do if they are not quite where they should be.  

To accurately measure our students’ learning as well as help our educators pinpoint areas in need of improvement, we use the Smarter Balanced State Assessments (also known as SBAC or SBA) in English/Language Arts and mathematics, which are aligned to the Common Core State Standards.  These tests provide an academic check-up and are designed to help teachers and parents know whether students are on track to be career- and college-ready by the time they graduate.  Student performance on these assessments helps teachers and school leaders do a better job of making sure your child receives the best education possible.

Smarter Balanced assessments offer significant improvements over other types of assessments, including writing at every grade, a variety of question types, and Performance Tasks that ask students to apply their knowledge and skills to real-world problems.  SBA includes question formats that allow students to demonstrate a broad set of skills, like critical thinking, problem-solving, and analytical writing rather than just regurgitating facts.

At Hillsboro School District, students in 11th grade will take the Smarter Balanced tests sometime between March and the end of the school year. Tentative dates are ELA week of April 17th, Math Week of April 24th, Science Week of May 1st.  Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions you may have about state testing this year.