By Hannah Shields
Wyoming Tribune Eagle
Via- Wyoming News Exchange
CHEYENNE — Students are spending too much class time preparing for tests instead of learning, according to Wyoming K-12 public school officials, and the state has released a plan to help relieve some of the burden.
The Wyoming Department of Education last Thursday outlined ways to reduce the amount of state-required testing in public schools. The Assessment Reduction and Efficiency Plan removes or reduces state math testing in grades 3-12, removes a third grade writing assessment and launches a new student assessment data platform for parents and teachers.
The plan would reduce by at least 30% of the number of items on math assessments for grades 3-8 and remove K-2 interim assessments completely.
Required ninth grade assessments could become optional under the plan, but that requires change by both the Wyoming Legislature and Wyoming State Board of Education (SBE). The same goes for reformatting high school math assessments, where the plan proposes shifting from specific math subject areas to comprehensive math skills.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder presented the plan to the SBE during its annual retreat in Newcastle on June 20.
“Throughout my campaign, and during my first year in office, I kept hearing from parents, teachers, administrators and lawmakers that we need to reduce testing,” Degenfelder told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle in an email. “In reality, our state assessment only exceeds that of the federal requirements in a few areas, so we started there.”
Since the state funds Wyoming’s public schools, state-funded assessments are the Legislature’s way to make certain it’s getting its “bang for the buck,” said Rep. David Northrup, R-Powell, who co-chairs the Legislature’s Joint Education Committee.
The downside of these assessments, however, is that teachers are now “teaching for the test,” he said.
“That was never the idea behind it,” Northrup said. “The idea behind it was, we want to see how well your schools are doing or how well individual teachers are doing.”
Too many skills, too little time
The state sets the proficiency standard for each grade level, with a required skill level in different subject areas to meet that standard. Northrup said it’s important to note state tests are only one of several types of assessments that students have to take.
“Students spend valuable learning time testing … when they could be basically learning more, or having more educational opportunities,” Northrup said.
Degenfelder told the WTE via email that the “plan was truly created based on stakeholder feedback.” This includes input from dozens of district superintendents, principals, teachers, curriculum directors, parents and lawmakers.
“While I deeply value accountability in education, we must not let bureaucracy get in the way of innovation in the classroom,” Degenfelder said in the email. “By streamlining and reducing testing to a more reasonable level, we provide teachers with more instructional time and less stress on students.”
Laramie County School District 1 Superintendent Stephen Newton said the buildup of required skills students need to learn for state exams is causing severe academic burnout.
There’s only so much instruction time, Newton said, and there’s a tipping point in how much students can realistically learn for a test. Cognitive overload causes students to fall behind, learn superficially or completely shut down.
“We just have too many skills we’re trying to say are important,” Newton said.
The superintendent of the state’s largest K-12 district used long division as an example of a complex skill. In order for a student to know how to do long division, they must also know how to multiply and subtract. So even though the student will only be tested on long division, there’s two other components they need to master first.
“Any complex task you don’t just learn in the next five minutes,” Newton said. “That’s true for kids, and it’s true for adults, too.”
A piece of the big picture
State exams paint part of the picture but fail to give a comprehensive view of a school’s academic performance, Newton said. Also, a student’s performance can’t be measured by test scores alone.
“We have to be careful that we don’t only count the things that are easy to count,” Newton said.
There’s a multitude of ways to measure a student’s academic success, he said. Examples include the number of college credits a student completes in high school, how well students perform in state and national academic competitions and the rate of college admissions and awarded scholarships given to students.
Newton also pointed out that not every school district is equipped with the same resources, which could impact test results. There are about 246 students in Cheyenne who are homeless, according to the last count, Newton said, which is more than some school districts.
“You can imagine the challenges that a homeless student has, that they bring into the classroom,” he said. “That is part of the story.”
It’s not a matter of replacing state exams, Newton said, but rather acknowledging this is only one of several data points to measure a school district’s academic success. Degenfelder said there were no concerns related to the state’s ability to track students’ academic progress under the plan.
“The assessments in the District Assessment System should provide educators with a robust set of data to help identify the progress of students through the district’s chosen curriculum,” she said.
Next steps
Portions of the assessment reduction plan could be implemented as early as this fall, Degenfelder said. The removal of the K-2 interim assessments will occur in the 2024-25 school year, along with the removal of the grade 3 writing portion from the English Language Arts assessment, but it might be pushed back to the 2025-26 school year.
Reduction of the ninth grade assessments and reformation of high school math assessments will not be as immediate, Degenfelder said.
“In the coming months, we will begin further work with the State Board of Education and then begin to engage with the Legislature for necessary statutory changes that would need to be made in the next legislative session,” Degenfelder said.
Northrup indicated that he wasn’t sure how effective it would be to remove the requirement for ninth grade assessments. If a student is doing poorly, these assessments are a great way to catch anyone who is falling behind, he said.
“I understand reducing them. I understand trying to get testing to a lesser level,” he said. “But getting rid of testing altogether would be the wrong thing to do.”
