Bill Moore, Director of the Core to College Alignment & Transition Math Project at the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, hosted a Smarter Balanced Q&A on Tuesday, May 6th, 2014. Session Highlights include an OVERVIEW of the draft system agreement regarding the use of this as an early college readiness/placement indicator; BACKGROUND and rationale for the recommendations, and an OPPORTUNITY for participant questions about the process for endorsing and implementing this agreement. View the Blackboard Collaborate Recording at http://bit.ly/1oPi6mc

1. Revised Recommendations:
System Agreement for the Use of
Smarter Balanced 11th Grade
Assessment in Washington
Higher Education Placement
Process
April 2014

2. Major Shifts
in the Common Core State Standards:
“Fewer, Higher, Clearer, Deeper”
MATH
• Focus strongly where the
standards focus
• Coherence: Think across
grades and link to major
topics within grades
• Rigor: Require conceptual
understanding, fluency,
and application
www.corestandards.org
ELA
• Building content
knowledge through
content-rich nonfiction
• Reading, writing, and
speaking grounded in
evidence from text, both
literary and informational
• Regular practice with
complex text and its
academic language

3. Smarter Balanced Assessment
Consortium
• 26 states &
territories (22
governing, 3
advisory, 1
affiliate)
• K-12 & Higher
Education
Leads in each
state

4. Describe
Explain
Interpret
Level One
(Recall)
Level Three
(Strategic
Thinking)
(Extended
Thinking)
Level Two
(Skill/
Concept)
Design
Synthesize
Connect
Apply Concepts
Critique
Analyze
Create
Prove
Arrange
Calculate
Draw
Repeat Tabulate
Recognize
Memorize
Identify
Who, What, When, Where, Why
List
Name
Use
Illustrate
Measure
Define
Recall
Match
Graph
Classify
Cause/Effect
Estimate
Compare
Relate
Infer
Categorize
Organize
Interpret
Predict
Modify
Summarize
ShowConstruct
Develop a Logical Argument
AssessRevise
Apprise
Hypothesize
Investigate
Critique
Compare
Formulate Draw Conclusions
Explain
Differentiate
Use Concepts to Solve
Non-Routine Problems
Level
Four
Source: Webb, Norman L. and others, “Web Alignment Tool” 24 July 2005. Wisconsin Center of Educational
Research, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2 Feb 2006 4
Assessing the Common Core
Smarter
Balanced
assessments
move beyond
basic skills and
recall to assess
critical thinking
and problem
solving

6. Why is Higher Education Involved?
Common Core State Standards anchored in
expectations for college readiness
Opportunity to improve college readiness,
reduce remediation, and boost completion
Making K-16 “alignment” meaningful
adapted from Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium

7. Case for Supporting
Common Core State
Standards
• “Fewer, higher, clearer”
expectations
• Framework for meaningful
K-16 “alignment”
• Opportunity to address
equity issues in college
preparation and readiness
Case for Incorporating
Smarter Balanced
Assessment into
Placement Process
• Improvement over existing
tools (cost, item variety
and range, …)
• Transparency and
ownership
• Opportunity to create
incentive for more students
to get “college-ready” in
high school

8. Core to College System Policy Timetable
System policy
work group (Fall
2013)
Cross-sector
summit
gathering
(Fall 2014)
Confirm SB
participation
commitment
(before January
2015)
Develop
specific
proposal for SB
use in higher
education
Review and
endorse
proposal
Showcase
local school/
college
partnerships
System group
and institutional
review (Winter
2014--Spring
2014)

9. SMARTER
BALANCED SCORE
POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS
FOR 12TH GRADE
POSTSECONDARY PLACEMENT
OPTIONS BASED ON SCORE
District option: Senior year
college readiness/transition
course (or some other intensive
academic support), then
opportunity for re-testing
Taking the statewide math
senior year college
readiness/transition course
Expected and advised to earn
college credits
 An entry college-level terminal math
course not on the calculus pathway
 An entry-level calculus pathway math
course, contingent on a B or better in a
calculus pathway class as a senior
LEVEL 4
(college-ready)
Any entry college-level math course
through pre-calculus I
LEVEL 1
LEVEL 3
(college-ready)
LEVEL 2
An entry college-level terminal math course
not on the calculus pathway, contingent on
a B or better in the statewide math college
readiness/transition course
 Encouraged to consider
appropriate advanced
college credit courses
 Taking a calculus pathway
class
SMARTER BALANCED RECOMMENDATIONS: MATH
Additional placement information,
determined by local institutional processes
(transcript, high school GPA, additional
testing, etc.), needed for all entry-level
courses

10. SMARTER
BALANCED SCORE
POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS
FOR 12TH GRADE
POSTSECONDARY PLACEMENT
OPTIONS BASED ON SCORE
District option: Senior year
college readiness/transition
course (or some other intensive
academic support), then
opportunity for re-testing
Taking a statewide English
senior year college
readiness/transition course
 An entry college-level English course
(including but not limited to English
Composition or its equivalent)
LEVEL 4
(college-ready)
An entry college-level English course
(including but not limited to English
Composition or its equivalent)
LEVEL 1
LEVEL 3
(college-ready)
LEVEL 2
An entry college-level English course
(including but not limited to English
Composition or its equivalent), contingent
on a B or better in a statewide English
senior year college readiness/transition
course
Encouraged to consider
opportunities for earning
college credit
Additional placement
information, determined by local
institutional processes (transcript, high
school GPA, additional testing, etc.), needed
for all entry-level courses
SMARTER BALANCED RECOMMENDATIONS: ENGLISH
Expected and advised to earn
college credits

11. Key Points about the Agreement
What It Does
• Supports
implementation of
Common Core
• Provides motivation for
some students to
improve readiness for
college
• Complements system
efforts toward multiple,
alternative placement
measures
What It Doesn’t Do
• Replace or address
directly issues with
current placement tests
• Apply to admissions
decisions for 4-year
programs
• Extend beyond Class
of 2018 without review
process based on
performance data

12. Class of
2016
Take SB
spring 2015
Enter higher
education
fall 2016
Class of
2017
Take SB
spring 2016
Enter higher
education
fall 2017
Class of
2018
Take SB
spring 2017
Enter higher
education
fall 2018
Agreement Timeframe
Review agreement in winter 2018 and consider revision/renewal for class of 2019

13. Comments &
Questions?
Core to College website
Bill Moore
bmoore@sbctc.edu
360-704-4346