A new bill would replace the SBAC with either the SAT or the ACT college entrance exams.
Between regular coursework finals, advanced placement tests, and college entrance exams, junior year of high school is rough. Now piled on top is the new SBAC assessment, which has faced lots of pushback from students, families, and educators across the state.
A bill that would decrease the number of high stakes tests 11th graders have to take is awaiting Governor Dannel Malloy’s signature. The measure would replace the SBAC with either the SAT or the ACT college entrance exams and reduce the burden on 11th graders.
Garth Harries, Superintendent of the New Haven Public Schools, calls it "a victory for common sense."
"A certain amount of testing is supportive of learning. Having multiple high stakes testing in one year didn’t make a lot of sense, particularly in the context where both the SAT and the ACT are taking steps to align with the Common Core and accomplish a very similar purpose," Harries said.
Historically, the SAT exam tested for different kinds of things than the SBAC, according to Bob Schaeffer, public education director for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing (FairTest).
"The SAT claimed it was not based on curriculum but a measure of underlying skills like aptitude, so on the SAT you had esoteric word games, you had problems out of context," Schaeffer said.
But the SAT is being revised right now, so it’ll be more closely linked to the Common Core.
Schaeffer said Connecticut’s law would be a small but good first step toward reducing test exhaustion in public schools. His group would like to see a scale-back of high stakes testing to the levels before the No Child Left Behind ramp-up.
"We have shown that we cannot test kids out of poverty, that testing is not the solution to the problems that cause kids to start school behind and end up even further behind," Schaeffer said.
State education officials still have to clarify several concerns about the potential change. They want to be sure that special needs kids receive the same kinds of accommodations on an SAT or ACT test that they would have on the SBAC. The state also still needs federal approval to make the change.
