State education board approves new science testing blueprint

The new blueprint comes after the state reduced the number of content standards in science and math earlier this year. The new math blueprint was approved at the last board meeting. 

The new science assessment blueprint will cover all six of the fourth grade content standards, 24 out of 28 eighth grade content standards and 17 out of 29 tenth grade content standards. 

Before approval, several members voiced their concern over this plan for assessments. The concern rose out of the length of assessments.

Fourth graders on average take one hour and 31 minutes to complete the current assessments. The new blueprint calls for a change in the number of items on the fourth grade assessment but not by very much. 

The science assessment for fourth graders currently has 6 cluster questions and 12 standalone questions. Cluster questions have multiple parts to answer while stand-alone questions have only one part. The new blueprint would require 8 cluster questions and no stand alone questions. 

Board member Amy Pierson said that she has experienced and heard from teachers how difficult clusters questions can be for students. She continued by saying that watching a fourth grader struggle to take a test for two hours is heart breaking. 

The presentation on the new blueprint did not include an estimation on how long these new tests would take students. 

State superintendent Megan Degenfelder stepped in to add that the hope is that the testing time will be reduced because of the reduction of standards. 

“We cannot promise that at this time, but with those reduced standards the teachers should be able to better in-depth educate their students on, I’m hopeful that we can see a quicker time to take that test,” said Degenfelder.

She also told the board that she directed her staff to make the assessment as short as possible. 

The number of questions on the eights and tenth grade test will not change. 

Eventually, the board members seemed to all get on the same page, and the new assessment blueprint passed unanimously. 

In addition to the science assessment blueprint, the board also tweaked a couple of numbers in the previously-approved math assessment blueprint. The changes were to correct typos and incorrect data. 

The board also approved the expense to send one attorney for the department to the National Council of State Education Attorneys conference and two teacher evaluation systems. 

Sheridan County School District #1 and Park County School District #16 were the two school districts to submit teacher evaluation systems to the board this year.