The Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings releases a study, Strength in Numbers, State Spending on K-12 Assessment Systems by Matthew M. Chingos.
The Premise:
The Common Core effort has prompted concerns about the cost of implementing the new standards and assessments, especially in states that have historically spent very little on their tests. Unfortunately, there is little comprehensive up-to-date information on the costs of assessment systems currently in place throughout the country. This report seeks to fill this void by providing the most current, comprehensive evidence on state-level costs of assessment systems, based on new data gathered from state contracts with testing vendors.
Key Findings:
We find that the 45 states from which we obtained data spend a combined $669 million per year on their primary assessment contracts, or $27 per pupil in grades 3-9, with six testing vendors accounting for 89 percent of this total.Supporting Data:
- The cost of standardized testing for grades 3 - 9 in the 45 jurisdictions studied averages out to $65 per student.
- In 2001, The Pew Center found that Delaware led the pack with assessment spending at $44 per student. (p.4)
- Today, Delaware ranks 4th behind D.C., Hawaii, and Alaska at $73/student.
- In 2012, Delaware spent just over $5 million to test $70,000 students.
- Delaware's contracted test-maker, ARI, has a 9 % market share.
Christina School District allocates $10 per student to Supplemental Arts Support for an approx. expenditure of $150,000 targeted to the arts in our schools.
We dedicated $250,000 to middle school sports in our final 2012-13 budget which equates to an approx. expenditure of $65 per student in middle school.
And the DE Dept. of Education spent $73 per student on DCAS.
Go read the Brookings report: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2012/11/29%20cost%20of%20assessment%20chingos/11_assessment_chingos_final.pdf
And then let's watch and see if our DOE implements their suggestions. Delaware has a higher cost per student on assessment spending b/c we have fewer students than the larger states. NY only spend $7 per student. Common Core is the driver for the currents expenditures, and large expenditures are expected as they are implemented and assessment are aligned. Will DE contract AIR, again? Or will we join a buying consortium?
Of course, we could just break the mold and throw the damn tests out the window and put our teachers back to doing what they were trained to do - TEACH! And I bet if we adopted a portfolio approach to assessing all of our students, we find they know so much more than the tests give credit.
What do I know. I'm just a mom.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Word Verification May Be Case Sensitive