Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. New Resource! Guidance on Diagnostic and Formative Assessments Today, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond announced the availability of a new resource, "Guidance on Diagnostic and Formative Assessments." This informative document describes how educators can use California's approved assessments to evaluate where students are academically at the start of and throughout the school year. CALPADS and the ELPAC: Changes Beginning July 1, 2020, the California Longi...

Assessment Spotlight Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. Newly Updated Smarter Content Explorer! The Smarter Content Explorer has recently been updated! Offering new features based on educator feedback, this user-friendly web tool combines the information provided in the Smarter Balanced Content and Item Specifications—key resources used in test and item development—into an easy-to-use search interface. Users can access customized content generated by a quick search by subject, grade, and targ...

Assessment SpotlightFocusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments.Calendar Reminder: CAASPP and ELPAC System Downtime Fast ApproachingVarious CAASPP and ELPAC systems will be unavailable from Wednesday, January 8, at 5 p.m. through Tuesday, January 14, at 8 a.m. for a scheduled downtime. During the downtime, the following CAASPP and ELPAC systems will not be available:Test Operations Management System (TOMS)Test Administrator InterfaceCompletion Status and Roster Management SystemData Entry InterfaceInte...

Dear LEA CAASPP or LEA ELPAC Coordinator: Welcome to the 2019–20 school year! CAASPP and ELPAC systems have resumed operation after they were updated to support 2019–20 CAASPP and ELPAC testing. New Test Operations Management System (TOMS) Interface Both the CAASPP and ELPAC TOMS have transitioned to a new combined TOMS interface. Enhancements and new functionality can be previewed on the System Enhancements web page. Share this information with your site staff to introduce them to the new interface. One notable change is with the credentialing functionality for electronic Student Score Reports (SSRs). It has been updated so that credentials only need to be generated once for the 2019–20 yea...

 Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California's other statewide assessments. New for Families: Starting Smarter Websites On April 25, the California Department of Education (CDE), in collaboration with the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and Educational Testing Service, launched two new websites to help empower parents/guardians and families to become partners in their children's academic success: Starting Smarter for the CAASPP Starting Smarter for the ELPAC These family-focused websites provide resources to facilitate ...

Editor's Note:  We routinely repost messages from the CDE that are marked as "Please share with educators"  Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System and English Language Proficiency Assessments of California (ELPAC)—and including, when timely, updates on California’s other statewide assessments. August’s Featured Digital Library Resource—“Exploring Pi with ‘Sir Cumference’” This month’s featured Digital Library resource, “Exploring Pi with ‘Sir Cumference,’” is a mathematics lesson intended for students in grade seven. It uses the fictional story Sir C...

Focusing on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) System, including the Smarter Balanced assessments—a major component of CAASPP—and the California Alternate Assessments and science assessments. Accessibility Last month, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium passed eight motions to update the Usability, Accessibility, and Accommodations Guidelines (UAAG). The changes, which apply only to specific CAASPP assessments, are as follows: New universal tools - Embedded thesaurus - Embedded line reader
New designated supports - Non-embedded amplification - Embedded mouse pointer size and color New accommodations - Embedded braille transcript ...