The results on the Smarter Balanced assessments, the centerpiece of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, or CAASPP, were released on Sept. 9 and showed the vast achievement gaps that decades of education reforms have failed to close. In a series of interviews, EdSource Executive Director Louis Freedberg interviewed several leading experts about the continuing gap — and what additional reforms are needed to narrow or close it. Part four of the series is with Stanford University professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who also is president and CEO of the newly established Learning Policy Institute. She also serves as chair of the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing and is the senior research advisor to the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which designed the assessments.
Were you encouraged or discouraged by the results on the Smarter Balanced tests, or is this what you expected?
I did not have particular expectations. I am not surprised at the trends we are seeing. I take it as a baseline, and that is how the state should approach it. The more important data will come next year and the year after as people get used to these kinds of assessments, work to make the investments in teacher professional development, and students use the opportunities they have to make up the gap, as well as move ahead. That will be when the real important results will begin to occur.
Read the entire article on the EdSource website.
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