[Assessment_Advisory_Committee] Assessment Advisory: Opt-Out Form Feedback

[Bain, Brian]

I see Joe gave his feedback, but I haven't read it yet, just to be un-affected by his viewpoints.

I'm unsure of the extend of our feedback you're looking for.  If I hadn't seen a prior version, I would have said this was fine, not great, but fine.  Having seen the prior version, I would encourage ODE to go back to the September 28th version.  That version was clear, gave good rationale and motivation, and had very friendly and appealing formatting.

I mostly worry about the tone and formatting of this notification.  It's very cut and dry, here's what we've got to tell you, and lacks much of the approachability and is harder to relate to than the earlier draft.  For example the old draft gives rationale as to why we raised standards: "...previous standards did not adequately prepare our students for the rigorous demands of the 21st century.  With a shift to new standards, we also shifted our statewide tests...."  Those "for the better good" type of statements are missing from the presented document.

But I suspect that's not the level of feedback you're looking for this late in the game.  Here's some more concrete feedback:


This statement to be completely untrue and should be fixed:

*         "If your child receives a 3 or 4 on the tests, they are considered on track to graduate."  I believe that statement to be untrue.  They are on track to be prepared for college and career, but they'll graduate with a 2.




>From an implementation at the district level standpoint:

*         Districts need to be able to specify where and how the form gets submitted.  Parents should return them to their school, not to the district office.  There's limited opportunity to address parent concerns at the district office, and the schools are the ones who ultimately need to prepare to offer an alternative to that student.

*         Districts need to be able to specify the date by which the form must be returned.  We've been told we have until January 8th to send them out, this says they must be returned on that date.

In terms of simple readability and formatting:

*         Are we still using the term opt-out?!  I thought we were going back to "Parent Refusal" which is the original and official term.

*         When printed in B&W, the first place your eye falls is "How much time do the tests take?"  Which isn't the message we want to highlight first.  It's a challenge to even see the dark boxes and the content contained therein.

*         "Why Does Participation Matter" doesn't talk about the rationale for requiring 95% participation at schools, that it's really a matter of equity, when participation is low, achievement gaps can be obscurred

*         Change "Your child will take the tests once after..."  to  "Your child will take the tests a single time after..."  once indicate a sequence rather than a frequency.

*         Why include both the SBAC and Extended windows?  One incorporates the other, and that much detail isn't pertinent to the message.

*         Consider putting all the bit.ly links on a single ODE page and then using something like tinyurl.com where you can specify some plain English links like "http://tinyurl.com/ode-smarterbalanced"  Something people can transcribe from paper.  I messed up twice trying to get to the 1nO2Vkt link.  Alternatively: http://ode.state.or.us/go/optout

*         Change "In addition, opting out may impact my school and district's efforts to target school improvement." to "In addition, opting out may impact my school's public rating by the Oregon Department of Education and my school and district's efforts to target school improvement."








Brian Bain
District Assessment Coordinator
Tigard-Tualatin School District
6960 SW Sandburg St, Tigard, OR 97223
503-431-4120 - bbain at ttsd.k12.or.us<mailto:bbain at ttsd.k12.or.us>

From: Assessment_Advisory_Committee [mailto:assessment_advisory_committee-bounces at listsmart.osl.state.or.us] On Behalf Of CARTER Holly
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2015 1:33 PM
To: assessment_advisory_committee at listsmart.osl.state.or.us
Cc: KOCH Meg
Subject: [Assessment_Advisory_Committee] Assessment Advisory: Opt-Out Form Feedback
Importance: High

Hi All,

As communicated in a numbered memo released on September 10th, ODE will be publishing a combined Opt-Out form and 30-day notice for districts to access on November 9th. To date, ODE has shared drafts of the form with parent focus groups and partners such as  OEA, the Chief Education Office, OSBA, Stand for Children, and the Chalkboard Project. Based on feedback from these groups, ODE has made several revisions in order to address concerns about the language, accessibility, format, and content. These changes include, but are not limited to:

*         Removing redundant or ineffective phrases, like college- and career-readiness

*         Simplifying page 1 text

*         Providing additional information about state tests

*         Encouraging parents to talk to their child's teachers and school principals

*         Providing links to resources and acknowledging House Bill 2655

*         Moving away from overselling the results of Smarter Balanced

*         Broadening the language for opting out to include Smarter Balanced ELA and math tests and the extended assessments

*         Remove and soften the language on page 2 about when parents/adult students should return the form

*         Add the qualifier "may" to the bolded statement above the parent signature

Before finalizing the form for publication, we wanted one last opportunity to gather feedback. We value your input, and request that you please send any feedback to Meg Koch (meg.koch at state.or.us<mailto:meg.koch at state.or.us>) no later than end of day next Wednesday, November 4. Once finalized, we will disseminate the form to schools and districts November 9 as planned. In our message to schools, we will include additional resources to assist them in communicating with parents and students.

Thank you,

Holly Carter
Interim Director of Assessment
Office of Learning | Inst., Stand., Asmt, &Acc. Unit | Oregon Department of Education
Phone: 503.947.5739 | Fax: 503.378.5156 | *holly.carter at state.or.us
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/assessment_advisory_committee/attachments/20151102/224c41dd/attachment.html>