Student Assessment

ACT WorkKeys

 

All Grade 12 students in Alabama public schools were assessed with ACT WorkKeys for the first time in Spring 2015.  ACT WorkKeys assessments are research-based measures of foundational work skills required for success across industries and occupations.  They have been used for more than two decades by job seekers, employees, employers, students, educators, administrators, and workforce and economic developers.

ACT WorkKeys assessments measure the cognitive and non-cognitive skills needed for success in the workforce. Students take the Applied Mathematics, Reading for Information, and Locating Information tests.  Based on the scores attained on the three assessments, students may be eligible to earn a Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum Certificate. 

Visit www.act.org/aap/alabama for more information.

ACT w/ Writing

 

The ACT is the capstone of ACT College and Career Readiness Solutions, and it is aligned to Alabama's College and Career Readiness Standards. The ACT with Writing is administered to all Grade 11 students enrolled in Alabama public high schools. The ACT  

  • Is accepted by all four-year colleges and universities in the United States;
  • Has been approved for use in No Child Left Behind and Annual Yearly Progress accountability;
  • Will enable school and district leaders to track student performance with aggregate and standards-based reporting past high school classes;
  • Will be used as an instructional improvement program statewide to improve the college and career readiness of Alabama students;
  • Will raise college awareness and exposure among all students, rather than just self-selected, college-bound students now that it is administered statewide;
  • Will provide user-friendly information about how ACT tests align with state standards.

 

The ACT Individual High School Reports are excellent tools that can be used by counselors and teachers as they assist students in preparing for their futures. Educators will know the students' educational strengths and weaknesses, areas of need, college plans, and career interests. Teachers and administrators will use the ACT Profile Report in intervention, curriculum review, course planning, collaboration, and professional development.

 
For more information, visit www.act.org/aap/alabam
ACCESS for ELLs

 

ACCESS for ELLs 2.0 is a secure large-scale English language proficiency assessment anchored in the World-Class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) English Language Proficiency (ELP) Standards and administered to students in Grades K-12 who have been identified as English language learners (ELs). It is given annually in Alabama and is used to monitor EL students' progress in acquiring academic English within the school context, as well as language associated with language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies across four domains of Speaking, Listening, Reading, and Writing.

       

Primary Purposes:

    • Generates results that serve as a criterion to aid in determining when ELs have attained the language proficiency needed to participate meaningfully in content area classrooms without program support and on state academic content tests without accommodations.
    • Provides information that can be used to enhance instruction and learning for ELs.
    • Provides districts with information that will aid in evaluating the effectiveness of their English as a Second Language (ESL)/bilingual programs.
    • Used as a criteria for determining when an EL student will exit from the ESL program.  Exit criteria is a 4.8 composite score. Once this score is achieved, students will no longer receive ESL services and will be placed on monitoring status for two academic years.
    • Provides data to study changes in performance over time.

 

Alternate ACCESS for ELLs is a performance-based assessment developed specifically for English learners (ELs) in Grades 1-12 with significant cognitive disabilities. 

 

Participation Criteria:

    •  Student must be classified as an EL.
    • The student must be identified as eligible for special education services as a student with a significant cognitive disability.
    • The student must be participating in an alternate curriculum and in the Alabama Alternate Assessment (AAA).

 

Visit www.wida.us.

AAA

 


The Alabama Alternate Assessment(AAA) is a performance task assessment administered as an alternate to the general education state assessment.  The AAA is administered to students with significant cognitive disabilities working on the Alabama Extended Standards.  The AAA is a paper-based multiple choice assessment administered in the areas of reading and mathematics in Grades 3-8 and 10 and science in Grades 5,7, and 10.

NEAP

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the largest continuing and nationally representative assessment of what our nation's students know and can do. NAEP is congressionally mandated and was first administered in 1969 to measure student achievement nationally.  NAEP is referred to as the Nation's Report Card because it tells us how students across the country, not just in one particular school or state, are performing.

Scantron

 

Scantron's Performance Series is a computer-adaptive, online assessment that offers educators an efficient, standards-based method to immediately diagnose student needs and inform placement and instructional strategy decisions. Performance Series has been utilized for these purposes by districts across the state of Alabama since the school year 2011-2012. For 2017-2018, Alabama has adopted Performance Series as its interim state assessment for grades 3-8 for accountability, while planning for a state-owned summative assessment continues.

Performance Series assessments are aligned to Alabama's College- and Career-Ready standards, as well as to Common Core standards. The results show a student's scaled score and where that score falls in terms of grade-level achievement. The initial fall scaled score is used as a baseline for measuring growth, and growth targets for spring are immediately reported to the teacher and the student so they know how much the student needs to grow to stay on track.

The end-of-year report of Performance Series assessment results shows the student's spring scaled scores for reading, mathematics, and science (grades 5 and 7) and where those scores fall in terms of grade-level achievement, based on Alabama norms. The report also shows the growth, or learning gains, the student has made for those subjects. More importantly, the report identifies suggested learning objectives, which provides teachers, students, and parents with specific skills and concepts—linked to Alabama standards—that should be worked on next.