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Florida State Statute 1008.22(8) requires districts to develop assessments for each course offered in the school district.
According to the Master Assessment Plan provided by the FLDOE, there were 2,882 courses offered K-12 statewide in 2011. 636 of these courses have planned or existing statewide standardized assessments, Florida Interim Assessments, Hard to Measure assessments, or other assessments (AP, IB, AICE, etc.). That leaves 2,246 "gap" courses statewide for which there are no current or planned assessments being developed.
There are two primary reasons why these required assessments should be valid, reliable, and legally defensible:
- Student performance on assessments is used for teacher evaluation and compensation decisions.
- For district accreditation purposes, AdvancED requires "at least one assessment for any content area required by a governing authority."
Because, by 2014-2015, districts will be required to assess ALL subject areas, assessment data will need to be submitted for every course. Districts gain points toward accreditation if the assessments being used are "proven reliable and bias free."
Central Florida Assessment Collaborative members benefit from pooling resources and expertise to develop these required assessments.
All assessments follow the same process being used by the FLDOE in the creation of Hard to Measure assessments: item specification development, test blueprint development, item writing, item review (including bias & sensitivity review), field testing (across a geographic, ethnic, and socioeconomically diverse population), and standard setting.
Every district is working to develop assessments; instead of working independently, we are maximizing efficient utilization of resources and minimizing duplication and redundancy.