Federal standards alter district focus

The federal government decided to implement a new set of standardized testing starting in 2014.

“The Superintendent for Public Education has suggested that the STAR tests be suspended until the new tests based on the Common Core are begun in 2014,” Chief Academic Officer Martin Griffin said.  “The legislature has not yet acted on that recommendation.”

The Common Core exam will replace the annual STAR test and will be staggered on a quarterly basis based on the subject.

“We are developing a society of test takers, which in my opinion, is not what education should be about,” Principal Mitzi Cress said. “We want kids that can go deeper and look beyond the letter grade.”

Compared to the STAR test, the Common Core curriculum focuses on analyzing and places an emphasis on reading.

“The new tests will include performance assessments and require more critical thinking and problem solving,” Griffin said. “They will require more writing and text-based explanations.”

Disparities among states in their annual standards tests resulted in the hope that the Core would put every state on the same page.

The Common Core tests, developed by Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, are expected to be computer-generated in order to get instant feedback.

In addition, teachers hope to benefit from the narrowed focus of the Core exams and better organize their curriculum throughout the school year.