Testing Students in Grades 3 - 8 - Oregon Department of Education

4/11/2012 2:21:00 PM

Testing Students in Grades 3 - 8

In response to Senate Bill 801, in January 2012 the State Board of Education adopted the Best Practices Guide for Administering OAKS. This guide emphasized the appropriate use of OAKS as a summative assessment, which should be administered to students only after students have received instruction in the assessed content. In addition, the State Board adopted a restriction on retesting students in grades 3 - 8 who had already met or exceeded the achievement standards unless the district received consent from the student's parent or guardian.

Preliminary data indicates that there has been a general decline in the number of OAKS Math and Reading tests administered to students in grades 3 - 8. The table below shows the number of tests by subject administered to students in grades 3 - 8 as of March 31, 2011-12 compared to 2010-11.

Tests Administered to Students Grades 3 - 8, as of March 31
Year	Math	Reading	Total
2010-11	259,628	292,320	551,948
2011-12	213,544	253,486	467,030
Difference	46,084	38,834	84,918

Following the close of the 2011-12 OAKS Online test window, ODE will conduct a more in-depth analysis to identify trends in retesting students in 2011-12. At that time, ODE will release an update to the Trends in Retesting Brief currently posted to www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?=3521.

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