For Immediate Release – October 10, 2018
Contact: Ted Fisher, ted.fisher@vermont.gov, (802) 479-1170
BARRE, Vt. – The Vermont Agency of Education announced results from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Program. These assessments are administered annually in the spring to students in grades three through nine. They are designed to measure students’ mastery of the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics.
“It’s good to see that Vermont students continue to perform well on the Smarter Balanced tests,” said Vermont Secretary of Education Dan French. “We are coming to the end of the No Child Left Behind Act era of standards-based accountability school reform. I am hopeful that our efforts to personalize learning for students and to create more flexible and relevant pathways throughout our education system will translate into greater levels of achievement across the entire system, and better serve the personal learning aspirations of students and their families."
The English Language Arts section of the assessment program includes sections on Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking, and Research/Inquiry. The results from each section are combined to form a broad English Language Arts score. The 2018 results are generally positive, with student performance improving in percent proficient and by scale score in almost all grades compared to 2017 scores. In particular, students in grades four and eight showed notable gains of more than five scale points. This was the first year that ninth grade students took the assessments, so no comparisons can be made to last year.
Read the full 2018 Smarter Balanced Assessment Results Press Release