North Dakota: Understanding Student Achievement Within State Assessment (continued)

North Dakota state law further requires that beginning no later than the 2005-06 school year and annually thereafter, the state assessments will be administered in reading and mathematics to all public school students in grades three, four, five, six, seven, eight, and eleven. The Department initiated administration to those grades in 2004-05.

State law requires that the state assessments compile both aggregated and disaggregated results. The state assessments must compile student achievement data that allow for a comparison of individual students, classrooms within a given school and school district, schools within the district, and school districts within the state. The test scores must also allow for comparisons based on students’ gender, ethnicity, economic status, service status, and assessment status, unless doing so enables the identification of any individual student.

State law requires the State Superintendent to present to the Legislative Council the test scores publicly for the first time at a meeting of a legislative committee designated by the Legislative Council. At the meeting, the State Superintendent and representatives of the testing service that created the tests are required to provide detailed testimony regarding the testing instrument, the methodology used to test and assess the students, and the significance of the test scores.

State law requires the State Superintendent to ensure that the State Assessment not include questions that might be deemed personal to a student or to the student’s family and that the assessment not include questions requiring responses that might be deemed personal to a student or to a student’s family. Before a test is finalized for use in North Dakota, the State Superintendent must require that the test be reviewed by a standards-alignment committee appointed by the State Superintendent to ensure that the test meets the requirement of privacy.

State law (15.1-21-14) requires school districts to allow any individual over the age of twenty to view any test administered under sections 15.1-21-08 as soon as the test is in the possession of the school district.

D. State Assessments Fulfill Federal Accountability Requirements

North Dakota, through an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education, has established an assessment plan to bring the state into full compliance with Section 1111(b)(1) requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). In accordance with North Dakota’s approved assessment agreement and the North Dakota Standards and Assessment Development Protocols (reference protocols at http://www.dpi.state.nd.us/standard/protocols.pdf.), state assessments were developed and adopted in mathematics and reading/language arts as indicated in Table 1 below on or in advance of the schedule. In 2006-07, one year prior to that required, North Dakota will develop state assessments in science at grades 4, 8, and 11 in accordance with state protocols and ESEA, section 1111(b)(1) requirements.

North Dakota has submitted its plan to expand the development of grade specific assessments to meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA). This plan supported the state’s Consolidated Application for ESEA funding, dated June 2002, and can be accessed at http://www.dpi.state.nd.us/grants/DOEapp.pdf. The state Consolidated Application has since been approved by the U.S. Department of Education.

The North Dakota State Assessment provides for a single, unified, statewide tool that measures the performance of all students in terms of the state’s challenging content and achievement standards. As required by state law, the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction has contracted with a single assessment vendor to develop and administer the state’s assessment tool, within the general guidance of state protocols and under the supervision of the Department of Public Instruction. The State neither provides for nor permits any assessment alternatives administered by any other local school district, school, or outside entity, aside from the statewide assessment prescribed by the State Superintendent. The state has contracted with CTB/McGraw-Hill to coordinate the development and scoring of the State Assessment. Students with significant disabilities are assessed with the North Dakota Alternate Assessment, and their scores are integrated into the schools’, districts’, and state’s overall student achievement database.

II. Technical Design and Quality Assurance Provisions for the North Dakota State Assessment

The design, administration, and reporting of the 2001-02 State Assessment marked a significant change from the past. The State moved from the former, off the-shelf, norm-referenced assessment to a criterion-referenced assessment aligned to the state’s content standards. Additionally, the State moved from referencing student achievement in terms of national norms to reporting student achievement in terms of the state’s challenging achievement standards.

A. Assessment Design

The North Dakota Assessment System uses an assessment tool that is aligned to North Dakota’s content standards. For school years 2001-02 through 2003-04, the Department of Public Instruction contracted with CTB/McGraw-Hill to develop and administer CTB/McGraw-Hill’s Terra Nova, Second Edition, Basic Multiple Assessment with a dedicated State Supplement of uniquely aligned test items. The combination of the Terra Nova and the State Supplement constituted the North Dakota State Assessment in those school years.

The assessment design for the 2004-05 instrument demonstrated marked changes. Rather than using a separate additional instrument, the North Dakota State Supplement, to ensure reliable measurement of all standards, one integrated criterion-referenced instrument was developed. The State utilized the CTB/McGraw-Hill test item bank to select items that addressed state content standards and benchmarks. This new design coincided with the revision of the content standards for English language arts and mathematics, as well as the expansion of the North Dakota State Assessment from three grades (4, 8, and 12) to seven (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11). Further, 2004-05 was the first year of a new contract with the testing vendor, CTB/McGraw-Hill.