ST. LOUIS COUNTY — Half of the school districts in ºüÀêÊÓƵ County have moved away from standardized testing in favor of a “reimagined†system that rethinks how student learning is measured.
This academic year, the Kirkwood, Jennings, Ferguson-Florissant, Hazelwood, Ladue and Maplewood-Richmond Heights school districts will focus less on the yearly, high-stakes Missouri Assessment Program, or MAP, tests — and more on interim assessments throughout the school year.
This, the districts believe, will provide real-time data teachers can use to help students improve quicker and more effectively.
Chris McGee, assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and assessment for Maplewood-Richmond Heights, described standardized tests as “lagging indicators.â€
By the time the tests are administered at the end of the year, the results come in too late for teachers to tailor their lessons or make effective changes for individual students, McGee said.
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“It’s hard to do course correction or to tell a really good story about the work that a child has done throughout the year,†McGee said.
There’s been a national shift away from standardized testing in recent years. Educators increasingly argue that yearly exams are ineffective or inequitable, as scores are often tied to students’ life circumstances outside the classroom or ability to test well.
“We wanted to move into something that provides a more meaningful assessment that’s actionable for teachers and personalized for each student,†said Matt Bailey, assistant superintendent of student services for the Kirkwood School District.
Six other districts — Affton, Lindbergh, Mehlville, Parkway, Pattonville, Ritenour and Confluence Academies charter schools in ºüÀêÊÓƵ — started trying this approach last year.
A 2022 Missouri law allows the state Board of Education to exempt districts from relying on MAP tests as a required state performance measure. Federal law still requires the MAP tests. That may change if Missouri ever receives a federal waiver, which education officials have discussed in the past.
The board granted 37 districts such “school innovation†waivers in the past two years. The board unanimously approved the latest group of waivers earlier this month.
“If we always focus on assumptive, one-time tests to find whether or not we’re getting the job done, I think we’ve missed the boat,†said Karla Eslinger, commissioner for the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The waivers are part of a decade-long effort in Missouri to move beyond what No Child Left Behind established in the early 2000s. The Bush administration federal testing requirements aimed to uplift student groups that struggled more than others, such as minorities or students whose native languages are not English.
Critics say it emphasized standardized testing as a means of accountability and “teaching for the test†— but not actual learning.
Other states have made similar changes to their testing rules. , the state eliminated its multi-day, end-of-year assessments and replaced them with a “progress monitoring system.†Last year , the state scored a rare waiver from the U.S. Department of Education to forgo its yearly standardized tests in favor of multiple exams through the 2023-24 school year.
“All of the assessments fell short of what is really needed to get to the level of data that supports students, teachers and parents in understanding where a child is at any point in time and give them specific feedback,†Mike Fulton, a lead facilitator with the Success-Ready Students Network, said.
In 2013, a by the Proficiency-Based Learning Task Force discussed developing a mastery- or competency-based assessment system, built on the idea that students only advance based on their mastery of skills, rather than the built-in amount of time they spend on a unit or lesson.
Instead of instructional time as a marker of when to move on to the next lesson, students could demonstrate their comprehension through “testlets,†or small tests.
Monica Boateng, director of assessment for Jennings School District, said students would be able to exhibit their learning in a variety of different ways. They could work on PowerPoint presentations or projects to show they mastered a subject.
“It’s not just a lecture or a teacher being the giver of all the knowledge,†Boateng said. “You will notice students are actively participating by demonstrating their knowledge and their learning in a way that’s best for them.â€
Much of what the 2013 report recommended, as well as several other studies like it in the years since, led to of the Success-Ready Students Network by the Missouri commissioner of education in 2022.
The statewide group seeks to move every school district away from MAP tests and is working with the state to obtain a federal waiver.
“We’re looking at that as a model going forward for state assessment, but that has to be designed and developed and piloted,†Fulton said.