Refinements to SBAC Mean More Learning Time

New Haven, Connecticut – Today, the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) and Governor Dannel P. Malloy announced that Connecticut will eliminate the performance tasks on the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBAC), since they are often duplicative of classroom work. This elimination will shorten the test by up to an hour and forty-five minutes in grades three through eight. In response, Jeffrey Villar, Executive Director of CCER, made the following statement:

“I congratulate Governor Malloy and the CSDE on working with the Smarter Balanced Consortium to fine-tune the delivery of the SBAC, saving valuable instructional time for Connecticut’s children. We must always work to balance the time spent on instruction with the need to assess children’s learning. By making the SBAC even shorter than any previous statewide assessments over the past three decades, we have made it easier than ever for classrooms to make focusing on students the top priority.

“In addition, CCER would also like to see the CSDE provide school districts with a model assessment calendar so that we can all work on reducing the number of district-level assessments that have been independently developed. We know that these local assessments are increasingly taking valuable instructional time away from our classrooms, often without providing us with the same level of high-quality information that we get from the annual, statewide assessment. We want Connecticut’s assessment system to be economical, effective, and efficient. This is a positive step toward ensuring an appropriate balance between instruction and accountability in our schools.”

About the Connecticut Council for Education Reform