By Cole Lauterbach/Illinois Radio Network
SPRINGFIELD – Illinois’ students will be some of the first in the nation to be subject to a new, more difficult, science assessment this year.
Along with Washington D.C., Illinois will be early adopters of a new form of testing students for their science knowledge. The Illinois State Board of Education agreed last week to move forward with the Illinois Science Assessment. It’s a tough test. Only 39 percent of high school students involved last year’s pilot passed.
Chad Colby, vice president of Strategic Communications & Outreach with the non-profit education reform group Achieve, said the new testing is more based on a student’s ability to conceptualize science than memorizing arbitrary numbers and facts.
“It will be less reading a book and regurgitating what they just read,” he said.
It’s a tough test. Only 39 percent of high school students involved in the Illinois-administered pilot passed last year. But scores are known to drop any time a new method of measurement is given, Colby said.
The state ran into issues when it was about to take the second round of pilot testing last fall. Educators grumbled that the state hadn’t released the results from the testing done in the spring, therefore they were unable to adapt to the new testing results.
In taking the new assessment, Colby said the conceptual manner of learning science will help students in other subjects.
“It will get them reading more and doing math,” he said.
