School district is above statewide proficiency in pilot assessment

LINCOLN  — Randolph school officials are reading between the lines when reviewing the 2020-21 Nebraska Student-Centered Assessment System results.

“I am always encouraged by the results of Randolph students,” said Elementary Principal Mary Miller. “There are always highs and lows but for the most part we consistently perform at or above the state level.”

And that was the case in the NSCAS test results from last year’s pilot assessment that tested third through eighth-grade students in English Language Arts - vocabulary, reading comprehension and writing skills - and Math - algebra, geometry and data/probability.

The results come with a variety of caveats that one has to take into account to understand the results fully.

The Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) announced the transition to a through-year assessment model in October 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted statewide assessments in spring 2020 but the transition to the testing model continued.

The NSCAS assessments were shortened for the 2021 to preserve as much instructional time as possible and shorter assessments are typically less statistically reliable and less precise than longer tests. The shorter assessments were classified as highly reliable even though they were slightly less reliable and slightly less precise than early versions of the assessments, according to the NDE’s COVID-19 Special Report.

The pilot assessment included about half of the questions it would include in a full test, said High School Principal Brandi Bartels.

The pilot assessment aimed at gathering data only and originally did not include public reporting of the results. However, the U.S. Department of Education mandated public reporting occur despite limitations, according to the NDE report.

In releasing the results, the state warned not to compare districts and schools to each other as circumstances during the pandemic varied greatly between districts.

“While COVID did not really affect our school as much last year, it affected other school districts across the state,” Bartels said.

There is strong evidence Nebraska students continued to learn despite pandemic interruptions but it’s likely most students did not grow as much as would have been expected in a normal school year, according to the NDE.

“The fact that it was meant to be a practice test to help NDE norm the new testing system greatly affected scores,” Bartels said.

The NSCAS results are a one-time snapshot of student achievement. Districts have multiple sources of data for students and the combination of the data and trends are more important than any single assessment result.

For this year, Randolph Schools are relying more on other assessment data to make instructional decisions, Bartels said.

But she’s looking forward to using the NSCAS data in future years. The full test will be administered three times a year - fall, winter and spring - which will provide a look at a student’s learning growth over time.