Dear Weber School District Families,
As the summative assessment windows approach for the state of Utah, we would like to provide you with some context around how standardized testing fits into the public education system, and some lesser known variables around the use of these tests and their purpose.
The state provides more than half of the funding that our public schools receive and with funding comes accountability. It is extraordinarily difficult for the state to precisely measure the effectiveness of public education, and thus standardized testing, resource allocation plans, board policies, administrative regulations and other features of a public school district are scrutinized.
Higher test scores, means higher levels of proficiency as defined by the Utah State Board of Education. In some ways, declining test scores can be used by the legislature to bolster school choice initiatives and efforts, taking away the leverage of our public school system. This scrutinization of public school districts is leading to the growing influence of school choice, or voucher programs.
Another prominent variable and equally important is the Utah School Report Card system that is used in Utah as another accountability feature. Results on standardized tests comprise a significant portion of the score Weber School District receives. These report card grades are sometimes seen as the public perception of the culture of the school. While this is not always the case, standardized testing drives the report card system.
Funding, accountability, and community presence are all tied in some way to the outcomes of standardized testing. As we move forward with state assessments, we are asking for your continued support of your students by having you discuss the importance of all tests your student may encounter in their educational pathway. We want our students to demonstrate the knowledge and skills they've acquired as they progress toward their well earned day of graduation from the Weber School District. Through longitudinal studies, we see that teachers who utilize student data from state assessments to inform their instruction, students perform better on national standardized assessments such as the ACT and SAT.
As parents, you can support your student by ensuring they attend school consistently, get adequate rest prior to assessment, and remind them it is about showing growth on their assessment regardless of how they have scored in past years. Our goal is to help students feel success through the growth of their scores and create a student body that is competitive on national assessments that are taken during high school.
Should you have any questions regarding your students performance on state assessments including Acadience, RISE, or Utah ASPIRE+ please reach out to your students teacher or principal. Additionally, if you are interested in seeing your schools performance you can access the school report cards at www.reportcard.schools.utah.gov.
We are looking forward to a successful spring assessment season and plan to highlight schools that show significant gains.
Respectfully,
Gina Butters
Superintendent
Dr. Bryan Becherini
Director of Assessment, School Improvement & Research
