The Making of Washington Assessments
Educators meet in Olympia to write & review items for tests this summer.
This is the first in a series of three articles about the making of Washington State assessments.
People from education communities from all areas of Washington join OSPI staff in Olympia this July to write and review assessment items for math, science, and English Language Arts (ELA). Teachers work in pairs or small groups to write stimuli and/or items aligned to the state learning standards. They also draft rubrics for short-answer questions (sometimes called “constructed response questions”).
Teachers are experts in the content areas and grade-levels they teach. They are implementing the learning standards and know the instructional materials. They know how students think and react to questions. Therefore, teachers serve as our “boots on the ground” resource.
Who is invited?
Certificated staff who work as classroom teachers, instructional coaches, or have other instructional leadership roles are invited to apply to participate. Teachers who work with career and technical education (CTE) students, special education students, and English language learners are also needed in each work group.
“We look at any specialized training that an educator may have in the content area, how experienced they are with knowing/using the learning standards, and if they have served on previous item development work groups,” said Kara Todd, Content Coordinator for Test Development.
“We want to get a diverse representation of our state,” said Todd. “We ask what side of the state does the person teach in, east or west? How big is their school or district? How diverse is the student body in their school or district? Do they have experience teaching early learners, special education, gifted students, and other specialized populations?”
If the committee is large enough, OSPI will try to have all nine ESDs represented and ESDs with more dense populations may have more than one representative.
What do they do?
Most of the time, each content area is organized into separate meetings for grade bands (3–5, 6–8, and high school), and for each part of the item development process. Educators use item specification documents, bias/sensitivity guidelines, and quality review checklists to draft, review, and revise items that will appear on future state assessments.
With the adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards in fall 2013, an increase in the amount of development in science has been critical to building the new item bank between 2013 and 2018.
Educator work groups also develop, review, and provide guidance on Digital Library and interim assessment resources prior to Smarter Balanced making these resources available to educators in Smarter Balanced member states like Washington.
Get email or text update and invitations from the OSPI Assessment Development team
Go to the Subscribe page for GovDelivery. Choose a subscription type. Enter your email address/wireless number. On the Subscriptions page, select Content Areas > Science, Math, and/or ELA then select the grade band(s) for which you would like to receive information. If you are interested in receiving updates from other OSPI departments, you can select those areas as well. Follow the directions until you have completed registration.
