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2003 SESSION

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SB 779 Student assessments.

Introduced by: Harry B. Blevins | all patrons    ...    notes | add to my profiles

SUMMARY AS ENACTED WITH GOVERNOR'S RECOMMENDATION: (all summaries)

Student assessments. Provides that the Board of Education will not require administration of the Stanford Achievement Test Series, Ninth Edition (Stanford Nine) assessment, except as may be selected to facilitate compliance with the requirements for home instruction. Local school divisions may, however, opt to provide this assessment. The measure also deletes references to the Virginia State Assessment Program.

The Standards of Quality (§ 22.1-253.13:3) currently direct the Board of Education to “(i) develop appropriate assessments, which may include criterion-referenced tests and alternative assessment instruments which may be used by classroom teachers and (ii) prescribe and provide measures, which may include nationally normed tests, to be designated as the Virginia State Assessment Program, which shall be used to identify students who score in the bottom quartile at selected grade levels." The Board adopted the Stanford 9 in 1996 as the norm-referenced test--one which compares the performance of Virginia students to that of students across the nation to be administered in mathematics, reading, and language at grades four, six, and nine.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is administered to samples of students from grades four, eight, and 12 for periodic testing in reading, mathematics, science, writing, history and other fields. In 1998, NAEP covered reading, writing, and civics in grades four, eight, and 12. In 2000, NAEP covered mathematics and science for grades four and eight and reading in grade four only. Virginia has been participating in NAEP since 1990. Beginning in 2005-2006, the federal No Child Left Behind act will require annual testing in grades three--eight. The Commonwealth's SOL tests are administered in three, five, and eight at the end of certain high school courses, but will be administered in grades three, four, five, six, seven, and eight in mathematics and reading by the beginning of 2005-2006.


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